This year in Formula 1, we saw Red Bull Racing, Mercedes, and Ferrari take turns throughout the season in a technical development battle.
However, from what has emerged, it appears that Mercedes and Red Bull outsmarted Ferrari by choosing a development path that ultimately took them in a completely different direction.
Formula One has always been defined not only by battles on track, but also by clashes that take shape on the drawing boards and computer simulations. This year, the dominance of McLaren has been clear, but behind them Red Bull Racing, Ferrari, and Mercedes have pushed each other to the limit, with second place in the Constructors’ Championship — on the eve of the United States Grand Prix — still very much up for grabs.
The teams from Milton Keynes and Brackley currently hold the advantage, but there is a specific reason behind their superiority over Ferrari.
The only one among the top four teams that has yet to secure a victory this year is Ferrari. Despite the high expectations set at the start of the season, they continue to struggle, never managing to reach the top step of the podium and often missing the lower steps as well. There is a technical reason behind this, linked to the choices made by the various teams over the course of the year, which has led to this situation.
Ferrari had followed Mercedes down the path of suspension development, but…
Over the course of the year, all teams chose a development path different from the others, with the sole objective that now seems most important: staying within the operating window of the Pirelli compounds.
At Imola, everyone remembers Mercedes’s new suspension, with the lower wishbone mount lowered by approximately 3 cm. This change was intended to give the Brackley car greater control over lateral load transfer, even though it increased body roll. The idea was that this effect would create better traction on corner exit. The result, however, was disastrous: although the W16 was more stable, the car became extremely slow in direction changes, leading the team to abandon this solution.
Exactly two months later, Ferrari introduced their version of the Mercedes-inspired suspension. However, this time the implementation was the opposite of Mercedes’, with the upper wishbone mount lowered instead.
As reported by Gary Anderson, this solution was intended to address problems that Ferrari had—and, spoiler, continues to have—with ride height.
The new SF25 had moved the cockpit and fuel tank toward the rear in an attempt to gain more rear stability, but as a result, the available space in the rear end was reduced. This forced the engineers to design the dampers (it’s unclear whether it was a single unit or two, although the first option is more likely), having to consider size constraints at the expense of their efficiency.
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The goal of the suspensions introduced during the filming day was precisely to create more space to allow the installation of a more efficient 2.0 damper. At the same time, lowering the upper wishbone mount increased anti-lift, meaning the rear’s resistance to rising during braking.
Evidently, this compromise did not change the overall performance of the SF25, rendering it ineffective in terms of lap-time gains. At most, it gave the engineers more flexibility with setup parameters during the weekend.
Mercedes changes his path with Red Bull and tricks Ferrari
During the summer, there was a transition in Mercedes’ development, with the goal of focusing more on aerodynamics in order to challenge Ferrari and secure victories in cases where McLaren did not have a dominant weekend.
The Singapore victory comes from the Brackley engineers, who are primarily focusing on aerodynamics with micro updates on the wings. The front wing has been the focus of our analysis, showing how the W16 has evolved and how the RB21 has also made progress.
The comparison in front wing development is based on the differences between the Netherlands and Singapore, where the wings have almost identical high-downforce specifications due to the nature of the circuits. The English team seems to have developed their high-downforce front wing by focusing on modifications to the third element. The difference between Marina Bay and Zandvoort lies in the load Mercedes wants to generate at the front. The third element has a greater chord and more camber, which naturally produces more front downforce compared to the 1.0 version, shifting the car’s balance.
This solution may also have been adopted to alleviate issues that affected Mercedes’ rear suspension. The result of this modification? A W16 that is more stable, responsive on corner entry, and fast with both Russell and Antonelli.
For the Milton Keynes team, the situation is even more peculiar. The engineers are attempting a paired approach to resolve the conflict between aerodynamics and the chassis. The solutions introduced in 2023 on the dominant RB19 were so extreme on the chassis side that they made it impossible to correlate aerodynamic development between 2024 and 2025.
However, with the latest updates, they finally seem to have found the right path to give Max Verstappen the season finale he deserves.
The Milton Keynes engineers put a revised front wing on track, again focusing on the third element. In this case, however, the wing chord has been reduced—as can be seen, the “curl” that had been added at Zandvoort to generate more downforce has been removed.
The reason the RB21 seems to have a larger wing in Singapore is related to camber. Even in the FIA notes, RBR reported: “Locally increased camber to extract more downforce – an evolution of the design with detailed research to increase camber in certain sections of the wing to generate more downforce while maintaining flow stability.”
This new introduction appears to have further resolved the conflicts between chassis and aerodynamics.
This technical choice is also linked to the floor introduced at Monza. This appears to be the real ace shifting the balance in the last races. In fact, Verstappen’s #1 car is now back to the level of McLaren. What still needs to be verified is how the new package will perform at Austin, Las Vegas, Interlagos, Mexico City, Lusail, and Abu Dhabi.
One argument in Ferrari’s favor is that, while the other two teams are still focusing on 2025 development, in Maranello they are putting all their effort into 2026. However, as of today, a failure under the next regulations would still be unjustifiable.
Main photo: Ferrari.com
