Ferrari turmoil: Vasseur’s future questioned again as 2025 drifts off course
Ferrari’s leadership saga has swung back into the spotlight, with fresh whispers in the paddock suggesting Fred Vasseur’s job security is once again up for debate — despite the team principal signing a multi-year extension before the summer break.
It’s been that kind of year in Maranello. The SF-25’s ride-height saga has defined Ferrari’s 2025, from Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification at the Chinese Grand Prix to a season spent papering over an aerodynamic/mechanical mismatch that’s forced compromises everywhere. The team has had to raise the car, nibbling at performance, and tell Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to lift-and-coast on straights to protect the plank. None of it screams title tilt.
So the noise has returned. F1 Insider claims Ferrari are “seriously” weighing a change at the top. John Elkann’s name inevitably drifts into view — and with it, Christian Horner’s. The Ferrari chairman was linked to an approach earlier this year. Now, after Horner’s headline-making exit from Red Bull, speculation has him back on the radar. But any immediate move feels fanciful: multiple outlets have suggested the terms of Horner’s departure would keep him out of the paddock until well into 2026.
That doesn’t stop the politics. This is Ferrari, after all: stability can be as short-lived as a pit stop.
Vasseur has been here before. Around Montreal, rumours swirled he could be replaced; Antonello Coletta, the architect of Ferrari’s successful WEC programme, was floated as a potential successor. Ferrari attempted to slam the door on all that by handing Vasseur a new deal on the eve of the Hungarian GP. CEO Benedetto Vigna called it a reflection of “trust in Fred’s leadership,” and for a moment, the message felt clear: stay the course.
But performance is the unforgiving measure. The missed execution, the setup misreads, the stop-start upgrades — it’s compounded the mood inside the team. In Singapore, Ferrari had to push back on claims Vasseur clashed heatedly with Matteo Togninalli, the head of trackside engineering. Italian media had already suggested Togninalli’s position was examined after the Shanghai double disqualification of Hamilton and Leclerc, before confidence was reportedly restored by deputy team principal Jérôme d’Ambrosio and technical boss Loïc Serra. Even so, the season’s attrition has rekindled chatter about tension and frayed tempers. Togninalli, one outlet noted, is an engineer of “great expertise” — and a short fuse.
Vasseur, unsurprisingly, is fed up with the noise. After his renewal, he vented about the destabilising effect of constant speculation, insisting the swirl around his job — and even the serial, wrong-headed stories about Leclerc’s future — weighed on the team. He also defended Serra, pointing out the 2025 car was largely set when the former Mercedes man arrived.
Whether that cuts through in Maranello is the question. Ferrari’s leadership loves a big statement, but moving on from Vasseur would be a risky one. He’s been methodical since arriving, tidying structures, hiring deliberately, drawing a thicker line between track operations and longer-term development. The results haven’t been immediate, and the Hamilton switch — historic though it is — has put even more light on the operation week to week. With Leclerc alongside him and both drivers under the brightest lights in the sport, the margin for wobble is microscopic.
There’s also the matter of options. Horner, if he’s truly unavailable until mid-2026, isn’t a short-term fix. Coletta would represent a very Ferrari solution — promoting a successful in-house leader — but bridging elite endurance success to the modern F1 beast is never seamless. And mid-project resets rarely accelerate a car out of a conceptual corner.
What’s clear is the SF-25’s core issue hasn’t been a quick patch. The ride-height sensitivity has clipped Ferrari’s strengths and created operational headaches Grand Prix after Grand Prix. The team has managed it, sometimes well, sometimes visibly on the back foot. But with the late-season run-in offering fewer variables and the frontrunners humming, style points won’t save the narrative.
If you’re looking for calm, Ferrari aren’t offering much right now. They seldom do. But even in this environment, ripping up a plan months after renewing it would be a heavy admission that the direction of travel is wrong. Vasseur’s task is simple to say and hard to do: convert the noise into results, stabilise weekends, and stop the bleeding of points and confidence. Do that, and the speculation usually takes care of itself.
And if not? Then the winter could be loud in Maranello — again.
Note: For official entries, teams and drivers for the 2025 Formula One World Championship, see the championship’s page on Wikipedia.
