Insight shared into Ferrari Tifosi’s mood about Lewis Hamilton and SF-25 tweaks

The mood of Ferrari’s famous Tifosi fanbase has been shared ahead of the team’s first home race of the 2025 F1 season.

Ferrari have endured a frustrating start to the new campaign and head into this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - the first of two home races for the team this year - out of form and under pressure.

The Italian squad had been tipped to emerge from the winter as McLaren’s nearest challengers having narrowly missed out on the constructors’ title in 2024, but their promising end-of-season form has failed to translate into the new term.

The statement signing of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes set tongues wagging in Italy, but the 40-year-old Briton has struggled to adapt and has largely been outperformed by teammate Charles Leclerc.

Sky Sport Italia’s Vicky Piria has shared some insight into how the Tifosi have responded to Ferrari’s hugely underwhelming start to the season.

"The excitement was huge, but then everything kind of got worse and worse because Miami was pretty bad for Ferrari,” Piria said.

“The gap between McLaren and Lewis was a minute, so that definitely was something that Italians did not expect.

"I think Fred [Vasseur], since he started his journey in Ferrari, he's always been really careful of keeping expectations down to earth. But this year it was different, everybody was really excited.

"Now everybody is obviously a bit disappointed.”

Ferrari car changes questioned

Ferrari ended 2024 with the second-fastest car but took the decision to make significant changes to their challenger for 2025 in a bid to find more performance.

One of the most sizeable changes to the SF-25 was a switch to a new pull rod front suspension.

But with Ferrari well off the pace of their rivals and having only managed a single podium appearance so far this year, questions have been raised as to whether the team would have been better off sticking with the philosophy of their previous car.

"The talk of the people is, 'you finished the season on a high last year, why did you go along, and completely change the car?’” Piria said.

"The switch from push rod to pull rod, and they changed a lot of the rear suspension, which is probably the hard point for Ferrari at the moment, having that rear really cling on the ground because they're really slippery. There's a lot of oversteer going on.”

However, Piria does not expect Ferrari to be booed.

"At the end of the day, the passion is so strong that I don't believe people will be booing Ferrari. People will be definitely cheering Ferrari and hoping for something to happen,” she explained.

"The season is still long. If we think about it, it was around this time of year in 2024 that McLaren really changed the game, in a way, so they definitely think that something is still possible.

“There will be frustration. I mean, Italians are known to be really emotional. I'm the first one to be really emotional. So that definitely will come up.

"If you think about Lewis Hamilton's sprint win in China, his podium in Miami. It takes a lot of time for the tifosi to really get angry and disappointed, but it does not take a lot of time for them to regain their hopes again.

"And I really think that if these things don't work, it just takes one race for them to really go ahead and really celebrate.”

Fred Vasseur to feel the pressure?

According to Piria, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur could start feeling the heat if the team’s fortunes do not change soon.

"If we think about it, this is the first year that it's actually 100 per cent Fred. He's got his technical team, he's worked on his car, he's got the drivers he's chosen, and things are not working the way they're supposed to work,” she said.

"We've seen with this F1 car that it really takes something small for it to underperform or to perform really well. So, I do think still there's some chance for them to pull themselves up.

"It's something that we see a lot in Italian football. As soon as a team underperforms, they go ahead and change the trainer. So, for sure there's going to be a lot of pressure on Fred.

"There was in the past on Mattia Binotto when he was underperforming, so knowing the tifosi, there will be. But then again, we're talking about really just a few tenths of a second, and it doesn't take much to change the picture.

"But if the situation that we saw in Miami goes ahead for the next races, then definitely there will be pressure on Fred.”