Respected Italian journalist Leo Turrini says rumours that Ferrari have found a “second or so” in the simulator with the 2025 car, the SF-25, are “meaningless”.
Ferrari! Ferrari! Ferrari! That is the hype ahead of the F1 2025 championship as the Italian stable welcomes new signing and seven-time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
“Let’s say that in the simulator Ferrari has gained a second or so…”
It is the headline, blockbuster, or box office storyline of the new season as the Briton seeks to break his tie with Ferrari legend Michael Schumacher as he chases a record-breaking eight World title.
That he could do it with Ferrari, well that’s headline, blockbuster, or, as Christian Horner put it, “box office”.
Hamilton, having won six of his seven World titles with Mercedes, walked away from the Silver Arrows last season to fulfill the “childhood” dream of racing in red.
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His first two weeks, from iconic photographs outside of Enzo Ferrari’s red-doored house to his first laps in a Ferrari Formula 1 car to his first crash in that same car, have dominated the news cycle.
And with it has come reports, more often than not unconfirmed ones as Ferrari don’t reveal a lot to the media, about the team’s 2025 car, the SF-25.
Carrying over “one per cent” of the SF-24, that coming from team principal Fred Vasseur, the 2025 car is said to have a pull-rod front suspension while the cockpit has also been moved backwards.
Better yet, the simulator tests say the car – which will only hit the track on 19 February – is quicker than its predecessor. Much quicker. A second quicker.
But as respected Italian journalist Turrini asks, quicker than what?
“The winter period never seems to pass and fatally Spaceballs begin to circulate,” he wrote in his blog. “Such are the whispers about sensational improvements to the Maranello simulator.
But for God’s sake! Among other things, such ‘rumours’ are objectively meaningless.
“Let me explain.
“Let’s say that in the simulator Ferrari has gained a second or so. However, compared to whom?
“No one knows anything about the data of Mercedes, McLaren, Red Bull, etc. Except for those directly involved. Which nothing leaks.”
But while the rumours are doing the rounds ahead of Hamilton’s debut campaign in red, Turrini insists there is one thing he knows for sure.
“I add one thing, because I know it,” he said.
“As Hamilton is a serious person, he has been cautious in his conversations with the engineers. Wisely very cautious about what he experienced.
“The fact that these days in Barcelona he is working, together with Leclerc, on the temperature of the tyres and on the starting procedures is a sign.”
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