Ferrari submits Hamilton, Leclerc request after fundamental SF-25 issue discovered
Ferrari has been asking Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to lift and coast to help manage a fundamental issue with the SF-25’s ride height in F1 2025.
That is the claim of Sky F1 reporter Ted Kravitz, who believes the trick is saving the team from the “nightmare” of making drastic compromises with the car’s setup.
Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc lifting and coasting to manage Ferrari SF-25 issueFerrari has been battling an issue with the ride height of the SF-25 since the start of the season, with the team realising the car was running too close to the ground during practice at the F1 2025 opener in Australia.
The problem resulted in Hamilton being disqualified for excessive skid-block wear a week later in China, 24 hours after converting pole position into victory in the sprint race in Shanghai.
Hamilton conceded at the following round in Japan that Ferrari has been forced to raise the car’s ride height to combat the issue, compromising overall performance in the process.
Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc: Ferrari head-to-head scores for F1 2025👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates
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Ferrari’s competitive situation has improved in recent weeks with Leclerc reaching the podium at three of the last four races, including last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.
That race saw Hamilton equal his best finish as a Ferrari driver with fourth place as the seven-time World Champion praised the impact of the Scuderia’s latest upgrades.
Kravitz has claimed that the Ferrari drivers have been instructed by the team to lift and coast at the end of the straights to “protect” the skid blocks from excessive wear and minimise the risk of further disqualifications.
Lifting and coasting is a driving technique that sees drivers lift off the throttle pedal before a corner, allowing the aerodynamic forces to slow the car down before the brakes are applied, and is typically associated with fuel saving as well as tyre and brake management.
Coming off the throttle also reduces the aerodynamic load on the car, which raises slightly when the driver eases off.
As such, applying this technique will allow the Ferrari drivers to protect the skid blocks from excessive wear at maximum speed.
It may also prevent the team from being forced to raise the ride height through setup choices, which comes with a huge performance cost in the current ground-effect era.
Appearing on Sky F1, Kravitz said: “Charles was told [by race engineer Bryan Bozzi] to lift and coast at all places.
“[Leclerc replied]: ‘I am, Bryan! I am!’ – which will become another instant team radio classic in F1.
“The reason they have to do this is that they have this problem with their ride heights, whereby they can’t run the car on heavy fuel as low as they want.
“So one way to mitigate all of that, rather than just jacking the car up and having a nightmare, is that early on in the race – and Lewis has alluded to this even though he said that Ferrari don’t want us to talk about it – they ask them at the end of straights not to have it at highest velocity when the downforce is pushing the car’s plank into the ground.
“They ask the drivers to lift and coast just so the car comes up a bit and it can just glide into the corners.
“It’s not a tyre-wear thing, it’s not a fuel thing, it’s not a brakes thing, it’s not any of that.
“It’s to protect, we believe, the ride height, the floor, the plank of the car, which they got disqualified [for] from the Chinese Grand Prix and since when the car has not been the same.
“But at least it is turning into a regular podium finisher.”
More on Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc from PlanetF1.comAs previously reported by PlanetF1.com, Ferrari’s efforts to recover from its disappointing start to the season are set to take a further step at this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone with the arrival of a highly anticipated rear-suspension upgrade.
The new part is regarded as critical to Ferrari’s hopes of a stronger second half of the season, with the change set to rectify the ride-height woes and allow the team to experiment with more aggressive setup choices.
Hamilton claimed his penultimate victory for Mercedes at last year’s British Grand Prix, ending a streak of 945 days without a win.
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