Ferrari are to switch to a pull-rod front suspension with their F1 2025 car as the team prepare to welcome Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes, it has been claimed.
Hamilton shook the F1 world to its core in February when it was announced that he will join Ferrari on a multi-year contract from the F1 2025 season, ending his long and successful association with Mercedes.
The British driver has collected six of his joint-record seven World Championships with Mercedes – as well as becoming the first man to claim more than 100 grand prix victories and pole positions – since arriving from McLaren in 2013, with Mercedes powering each of Hamilton’s 346 F1 appearances since 2007.
Hamilton’s decision to leave Mercedes came less than six months after he had signed a two-year extension on the eve of the 2023 Italian Grand Prix, with the 39-year-old activating a break clause in his revised deal to force a move to Ferrari.
After suffering two consecutive winless seasons for the first time in his illustrious career in 2022/23, Hamilton has returned to winning ways in F1 2024, ending a 945-day wait for a victory by triumphing at his home race at Silverstone.
Hamilton followed that up with a second victory of the season at the recent Belgian Grand Prix, where he inherited a record-extending 105th career win after Mercedes team-mate George Russell was disqualified for being underweight.
With the end of Hamilton’s Mercedes career in sight, Italian publication Formu1a.uno has revealed that Ferrari has taken “the first definitive decisions” over the design of the team’s F1 2025 car.
A revised wheelbase, targeted at a more advanced centre of pressure, is on the horizon, yet arguably the most significant change concerns a move to a pull-rod front suspension.
The move has been inspired by Hamilton’s driving style being closer in nature to that of Charles Leclerc than Leclerc’s current team-mate Carlos Sainz, who recently announced that he will join Williams for F1 2025.
Ferrari’s suspension choices have been regularly scrutinised during the current ground-effect era, with the Scuderia and customer outfit Haas the only teams remaining loyal to a pull-rod rear suspension. Every other team on the grid runs a push-rod layout.
Red Bull and McLaren already compete with a pull-rod front suspension, which is understood to bring a clear aerodynamic advantage by improving airflow at the front of the car – specifically the complex underfloor, which generates a significant proportion of downforce under the current regulations.
A move to a pull-rod front suspension would almost certainly require Ferrari to develop a completely new chassis for F1 2025, with new suspension arms attachments required.
The switch could also result in a change of the driver’s cockpit position for weight-distribution gains.
Hamilton memorably complained that his seating position was too close to the front wheels at Mercedes in 2023, describing the feeling of “sitting on the front wheels” as “one of the worst feelings when you’re driving a car.”
Ferrari’s resistance to follow the crowd in terms of suspension design was driven by former technical director Enrico Cardile, who announced last month that he will join Aston Martin for F1 2025.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has adopted the role on an interim basis, with Loic Serra reportedly set to become the Prancing Horse’s new technical leader following his arrival from Mercedes in October.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at the launch of Ferrari’s SF-24 car in February, Cardile insisted that Ferrari did not find any significant differences between having a pull-rod or push-road suspension at the rear.
He said: “In reality, our rear suspension is a bit different in terms of top and lower wishbone distribution compared to Red Bull, to mention one team.
“We recorded good aero results moving towards this direction and when moving from pullrod to pushrod.
“We didn’t measure a big advantage to justify some compromise in terms of weight or compliance, so from there we evolved our suspension, keeping the same layout.”
Cardile is likely to be joined at Aston Martin by F1 tech guru Adrian Newey, who is believed to have personally designed Red Bull’s suspension for the first season of the ground-effect era in 2022.
Reports this week claimed Newey, who had been courted by Ferrari, is set to earn $100million over three years at Aston Martin.
