Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying woes could be solved for the F1 2025 season after Ferrari reportedly made a major breakthrough with the new Project 677 car.

Hamilton is gearing up for his first season as a Ferrari driver, having announced almost a year ago that he would join the Italian team from Mercedes on a multi-year contract from F1 2025.

Ferrari’s Project 677 to unlock Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying performanceZZ

The seven-time World Champion will partner Charles Leclerc, widely regarded as one of the fastest drivers on the current grid with eight race victories and 26 pole positions to his name since arriving at Ferrari in 2019.

Despite returning to winning ways last season with victories in Britain and Belgium, F1 2024 proved to be one of the most challenging years of Hamilton’s career as he struggled for one-lap performance.

Hamilton was heavily beaten by George Russell in the inter-team battle at Mercedes, qualifying behind his younger team-mate at 19 of the 24 races across the season.

It prompted Hamilton, who celebrated his 40th birthday earlier this week, to admit at the penultimate race of the season in Qatar that he is “not fast anymore.”

That confession led to a number of pundits, including former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan, urging Ferrari to back out of the deal to sign Hamilton and retain Carlos Sainz, who has moved to Williams having been forced to make way for the veteran.

Hamilton stands as the most successful qualifier in F1 history, with a total of 104 pole positions putting him 36 clear of second-placed Michael Schumacher.

The nearest active driver to Hamilton’s record is Max Verstappen, the Red Bull driver and reigning four-time World Champion, with 40 poles in total.

With Mercedes struggling to adapt to the ground-effect regulations in place since the start of 2022, Hamilton has been restricted to just a single pole position over the last three years.

His most recent pole at the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix came despite Hamilton failing to set the fastest time in any of the three sectors across the lap.

Development of Ferrari’s F1 2025 car, codenamed Project 677, is being led by French engineer Loic Serra, who worked closely with Hamilton during his years of success with Mercedes.

Serra, who started work as Ferrari’s chassis technical director in October, is also believed to have shared Hamilton’s doubts over the zero-pod car concept pursued by then-Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott across 2022/23, with driver and engineer thought to be on the same wavelength.

And it has emerged that Serra could hold the key to unlocking Hamilton’s qualifying pace, with Ferrari aiming to improve the car’s one-lap performance for F1 2025.

A report by the Italian edition of Motorsport.com has claimed that Serra specialises in the area of vehicle dynamics, with his expertise in suspension components like torsion bars and shock absorbers helping Ferrari achieve “maximum exploitation” of the new Pirelli tyres for F1 2025.

It is said that Serra will primarily focus on Ferrari’s F1 2026 car ahead of F1’s major regulation changes next year, but has “immediately placed great emphasis” on turning Project 677 into a potential title challenger.

The changes implemented by Serra could alter the “basic behaviour” of the car, allowing Ferrari to achieve exceptional performance over both a race distance and a single lap.

Ferrari are thought to be among the teams to have worked particularly closely with Pirelli on the development of the 2025 tyres – expected to be less prone to overheating and capable of longer race stints – with the team understood to be aiming for an improved weight distribution with Project 677 in the hope of making further gains in this area.

Serra was initially recruited to work under Enrico Cardile, but found himself promoted to the role of chassis technical director following Cardile’s switch to Aston Martin for F1 2025.

He leads a multi-faceted technical team including Diego Tondi (aerodynamic head), Fabio Montecchi (chassis project engineering) and Marco Adurno (vehicle performance chief).

Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, recently revealed that Project 677 will be a “completely new” car compared to its predecessor as Ferrari ambitiously target both World Championships in the final year of the existing regulations in F1 2025.

A number of design details related to Project 677 have emerged since last summer, the most significant of which will see Ferrari return to a pullrod front suspension for the first time in a decade.

It is thought that the move has been facilitated by Hamilton’s arrival, with the seven-time World Champion’s driving style closer in nature to Leclerc than his predecessor Sainz.

A pullrod front suspension, favoured by rivals McLaren and Red Bull, is believed to enhance airflow towards the complex underbody, with the floor generating a high proportion of the car’s overall downforce levels under the current ground-effect regulations.

It is claimed that the change to a pullrod front suspension will also allow Ferrari to move the kinematic mechanisms of the suspension further down to achieve a better centre of gravity.

Ferrari are set to retain their divisive pullrod rear suspension setup pursued by Cardile, however, despite the Scuderia and customer outfit Haas being the only two teams still competing with this layout.

It is thought that Ferrari regard the pullrod rear suspension as a key factor behind the 2024 car’s excellent tyre management, with Cardile telling media including PlanetF1.com at the launch of last year’s SF-24 car that the team found no clear performance gains between a pullrod and pushrod layout.

A revised wheelbase is widely expected to feature on Project 677, with Motorsport Italy claiming the gap in distance between the front and rear wheels will be 3,600 millimetres, the maximum allowed under F1’s rules.

Generally, a shorter wheelbase results in a more nimble car, often proving an advantage on tighter circuits such as Monaco, Hungary and Singapore.

A long-wheelbase car, meanwhile, tends to produce more overall downforce and excels at more conventional circuits, with the extra surface area generating a greater aerodynamic benefit.

Reports last week claimed that Ferrari have also moved the cockpit of their car further back for F1 2025 in a move likely to please Hamilton.

Cockpit positioning proved to be a huge irritation for Hamilton during his penultimate season with Mercedes in 2023 as he complained of being seated too close to the front wheels.

It is unclear if Hamilton has had any direct influence on Ferrari’s decision to adjust the cockpit position via his pre-existing relationship with Serra, though reports last month claimed the seven-time World Champion had paid a private visit to the team’s Maranello factory to gain a headstart on his F1 2025 preparations.

Ferrari are expected to switch to a “bold” new livery to coincide with Hamilton’s F1 2025 arrival, with Project 677 set to feature a deeper shade of red than its predecessor.

The car will be launched on February 19, one day after F1’s first-ever season-launch event attended by all 10 teams in London.