Lewis Hamilton struggled in Singapore at the weekend but the Brit has plenty to look forward to.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has confirmed that the Scuderia are already working predominantly on their 2025 challenger ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s arrival, with their final ‘small upgrades’ coming at the United States Grand Prix.
The Italian constructor are within reach of second-placed Red Bull and even Constructors’ Championship leaders McLaren with six races remaining of the 2024 campaign, but with the series’ top four teams now all on a similar trajectory, Vasseur has made a decision to pivot Ferrari’s development towards the 2025 car.
“We all know we have already started the development of next year’s car,” Vasseur explained when quizzed about Ferrari’s upgrade plan. “We will try to have small upgrades on the next event.
“I think this will probably be the last one for everybody, for all the teams. It is going to be tight, if you look at the grid it is so tight between the top four teams and we see if it can make a difference.”
This will come as great news to Hamilton, who joins Ferrari at the end of the year following a legendary 12-year stay with Mercedes. The seven-time world champion has recorded two race wins in 2024, bringing his career tally to 105, but the Silver Arrows have rarely been a consistent threat for victory, sparing a purple patch before the summer break.
Fred Vasseur has offered an update on Ferrari’s 2025 progress (Image: Getty)
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Recently, Mercedes have slipped back down the pecking order with McLaren and Ferrari seemingly the fastest two cars in the field and Red Bull and the Silver Arrows chasing. The Singapore Grand Prix was a particularly challenging event for Toto Wolff’s team.
Hamilton’s weekend started with some positive news. The Brit, who has so often struggled in qualifying this year, placed his W15 on the second row of the grid behind Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, but Mercedes’ bold strategy calls on Sunday scuppered any dreams of a podium finish.
The Brackley-based team started Hamilton on soft compound tyres with the hope of jumping Verstappen at the start, but after a poor launch, he fell back and after struggling with the temperature of his Pirelli rubber, Mercedes boxed him onto hards earlier than any other frontrunning driver.
After crossing the line in P6, two spots behind team-mate George Russell, Hamilton was consoled by Wolff. “Yeah Lewis, sorry,” he said on the radio. “We gave you a car that was just not good enough here and obviously, we read the race wrong, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. We were just slow today.”
