Ferrari are set to retain their unusual pullrod rear suspension layout for Lewis Hamilton’s first season with the team in F1 2025, it has been claimed.
Hamilton rocked the Formula 1 world back in February by announcing that he will join Ferrari on a multi-year contract from the F1 2025 season, ending his long and successful association with Mercedes.
New details of Lewis Hamilton’s first Ferrari F1 car emerge
The British driver has collected six of his joint-record seven World Championships with Mercedes, as well as becoming the first man in history to surpass 100 grand prix victories and pole positions.
Mercedes also have the distinction of powering each of Hamilton’s 351 F1 appearances to date, stretching back to his debut season with McLaren in 2007.
Reports from Italy over the summer claimed Ferrari had made the first design decisions over their F1 2025 car – codenamed Project 677 – including a revised wheelbase and a switch to pullrod front suspension.
The latter will see Ferrari follow in the footsteps of Red Bull and McLaren, with a pullrod front suspension layout thought to bring a significant aerodynamic benefit by enhancing airflow at the front of the car and specifically the complex underbody, which generates a high proportion of the car’s overall downforce under the current ground-effect regulations.
The move is said to have been directly influenced by Hamilton’s impending arrival, with his driving style closer in nature to that of F1 2025 team-mate Charles Leclerc than current incumbent Carlos Sainz, helping to facilitate the change of philosophy.
And now Italian publication La Gazzetta della Sport has revealed that Ferrari are poised to stick with a pullrod rear suspension for next season.
It is said that the packaging of the cooling system will also be “evolved” in order to give the aerodynamic department a greater degree of freedom, particularly in the lower section of the sidepods, with the location of internal gearbox parts set to be revised too.
With F1 2025 set to be the final year of the current rules cycle ahead of the major 2026 regulation changes, the report claims Project 677 will have a “clear family feeling” in many areas as Ferrari largely stick with their current car design, with “many current concepts taken to extremes, but not overturned.”
Ferrari’s rear suspension has been scrutinised throughout the ground-effect era, with the Scuderia and customer outfit Haas the only teams yet to switch to a pushrod layout.
The report claims Ferrari regard their pullrod rear suspension as a “cornerstone” of the car’s vehicle dynamics, with the team convinced it is a crucial factor in making their F1 2024 car the best on the grid in terms of tyre management.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at the launch of this year’s SF-24 in February, then-technical director Enrico Cardile was insistent that Ferrari saw no clear benefit to having pushrod layout at the rear of the car instead.
