Bad news for Ferrari? Chief debunks low-speed strength ahead of Monaco GP

13:15, 23 May

byNorberto Mujica

Ferrari Deputy Team Principal, Jerome D'Ambrosio has contradicted media beliefs regarding the Scuderia's strength in the low-speed corners, a performance cornerstone at the Monaco Grand Prix street track.

When asked if the SF-25's solid performance in low speed cornering could help the Italian team achieve a good result, D'Ambrosio replied to media like GPblog: "I don't think we've got the same read actually on where our performance is. And so, no, personally, I don't think that our core strength was actually in these low speed corners."

"Having said that, it's always difficult because when you speak about low speed, high speed, it depends on where you put the car and that depends also on the average speed."

After stating that the high speed sections of a track will often provide constraints in the low speed sections, d'Ambrosio highlighted the uniqueness of the Montecarlo street track.

"Maybe here will be a place where it will be a bit of an outlier from that perspective, but I think that in terms of our pure performance I would say that slow speed corners are not our strength and more medium speed, high speed corners, were a bit better since the beginning of the season."

Ferrari scored a P1 and P3 result last year in Montecarlo with Charles Leclerc winning the Monaco Grand Prix

F1 teams, not just Ferrari, face this challenge for the first time in 2025

After stating that a compromise was always needed, the Ferrari deputy team principal stated that the Monaco Grand Prix provided every team, not just Ferrari with a 'first challenge' of sorts in the 2025 season, never revealing where he though the Scuderia would place in the pecking order.

"The reality is that we will see. I think in the end those variables are the same for everyone. So it's going to be the first race where we have really a slow speed track with very little high speed content and we will have to see how that affects each team. I don't think we've really seen that so far so it will be very much a new thing."

A 2024 strength for Ferrari was their ability to ride the kerbs and absorb the bumps. Whether that could actually be something the team could hope would help them score a good result in Montecarlo, the Belgian was not so certain.

"I think it's difficult to say honestly. From one year to the next a lot of things evolve. Where we put the car, how we need to run the car to maximize the performance."

"Again I think this is the first time we're going to find ourselves in this type of tracks. And in a few hours we'll get a better feeling of where we are. I don't think we're walking in here with confidence or lack of confidence, we're walking in here with open-minded as to what's going to come our way."