Expert Marc Surer believes that the 2025 season would have gone much better for Ferrari if they hadn’t lost technical director Enrico Cardile to Aston Martin.
Ferrari finished the 2025 Formula 1 season without a Grand Prix victory in fourth place in the world championship. This means that the Scuderia missed out on the top three in the Constructors’ World Championship for the first time in five years. The last time this happened was in 2020, when Sebastian Vettel was still driving for the team.
In an exclusive video interview on the Formel1.de YouTube channel, expert Marc Surer explains that he is “not so surprised” by this, “because a man left Ferrari who has always built a great car in recent years,” he explains. “And that man’s name is Enrico Cardile.”
Cardile announced his departure from Scuderia in 2024 to join Aston Martin. Surer emphasizes that although the cars of previous years were not world championship cars, they did at least win some races. “From the very beginning of the ground effect era, Ferrari has always had a great car,” says the former Formula 1 driver, explaining: “They may have implemented it poorly, but basically the car was good.”
In 2024, for example, Ferrari was still fighting for the Constructors’ World Championship title until the season finale in Abu Dhabi. In the end, McLaren won the trophy by 14 points, but a year later, the Woking-based team (833 points) scored more than twice as many points as Ferrari (398).
Surer is certain that this is largely due to Cardile’s departure. This year’s SF-25 was initially developed under the Italian’s leadership, but he handed in his resignation in Maranello in the summer of 2024.
“Ferrari then blocked him from working for six months. So they already knew they were losing a gem,” Surer emphasizes. Cardile’s departure is ultimately responsible for “Ferrari simply not being what it used to be.”
“Cardile was an insider at Ferrari who had been there forever. And I think he just wanted to experience something different, and then the offer from Lawrence Stroll [at Aston Martin] was certainly a temptation he couldn’t resist,” says Surer.
Ferrari itself attributes its poor World Championship ranking this year to, among other things, the decision made very early in the season to discontinue development of the SF-25 in order to focus entirely on the new car for 2026.
It remains to be seen how well Ferrari will start the new Formula 1 rule era next year.