A disgraceful qualifying for Ferrari, already facing tomorrow’s race with disappointment — the SF-25 is simply not competitive.
There’s something uniquely thrilling about Saturdays, a moment that projects one’s gaze toward Sunday — a gaze filled with trepidation and magnificent anxiety, dreaming of what’s to come. And then that day arrives, and as it does, one already begins to miss the one before, realizing that the anticipation itself is the truly beautiful moment.
Ferrari’s sporting drama finds an echo in a poem from a time gone by — a mix of disappointment, knowing the outcome of the day in advance; of a project built with ambition that now brings no joy. On this Saturday in the village — or rather, at the Santerno — the Maranello team delivers one of the worst qualifying sessions in recent memory, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton both prematurely eliminated in Q2.
It’s a result that hurts — that bends and breaks at the same time — because it happens at home, in front of thousands of passionate fans who have been waiting anxiously for two decades. That makes it hurt even more. The SF-25 was born flawed, a completely failed project from the smallest component to the most glaring one: the much-talked-about rear suspension, now sitting squarely in the dock with no room for defense.
This isn’t just a tyre issue, or about that narrow window in which the SF-25 performs well — and only for a short, limited time. The entire project, codenamed “677,” is a total failure. The numbers are merciless: just one podium (Leclerc’s in Saudi Arabia), Hamilton’s win in the Chinese Sprint, and his third place in the Miami Sprint — hardly enough to justify the scale of what’s gone wrong with the SF-25.
McLaren has shown that it’s possible to scrap an entire project, admit mistakes, and start again — there’s no shame in doing so, even if your name is Ferrari. It’s a matter of coherence, of honesty, rather than trying to decipher or chase after some elusive potential that now seems more like a myth than a measurable reality. It’s time to face the truth, take responsibility, and start finding real solutions — with 2026 in mind.
Ferrari has gone nearly 20 years without a world title — a drought far too long for a team of its stature. The management, so far more like a mystical presence in the garage than an active force, needs to regroup and find that thread that ties together the team, the drivers, and every person involved in building the car. That red thread, now burning and searing in the sun-drenched Saturday of the village, where there’s nothing left to understand.
