Lewis Hamilton has issued a challenge to his Ferrari team to step up their game after he described the car as “underperforming” in the wake of a lacklustre opening to the Formula One season, with the British driver managing only seventh place at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen took the win at Suzuka, leading from pole position, but Hamilton had a trying afternoon. He had qualified in eighth and, despite attempting an alternative strategy using the hard tyre to open, made up only one place, albeit with one of the few on-track overtaking moves, to pass Isack Hadjar in the Alpine.
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Hamilton struggled at the first round in Australia and was disqualified from the last race in China for excessive wear to the skid block on his car. He did take victory in the sprint race in Shanghai but certainly Ferrari are far from where they want to be, with expectations that they could be in title contention this season given their strong end to 2024.
Hamilton believes his teammate Charles Leclerc’s side of the garage is better adapting to the car. “I’m really hoping in the next race we’ll see hopefully some positive changes,” he said. “Through the first three races there’s been a bit of a deficit between both sides of the garage on some elements of the car. On my side, underperforming. With what I had, that is the best result I could get.”
He is still acclimatising to his new team and has repeatedly said that it would be a gradual process but, three races in, he clearly feels Ferrari should be making greater steps, even by the race next weekend in Bahrain. “My pace was maximum today. I didn’t have anything else in the car,” he said. “Underperformance happening at the rear of the car this weekend and obviously qualifying position is key. I’m hoping the next race we will be closer. It will definitely be interesting for sure.
“I just hope we’re a little bit closer but I think we are probably the fourth fastest at the moment and I think we are a little bit off the other guys in terms of performance, downforce-level wise. So we’ve got some work to do to close the gap.”
The Ferrari team principal, Frédéric Vasseur, said his team were two to three-tenths down in qualifying and the same margin back in race pace but believed they could bridge that gap. “Last year we were able to come back. The first couple of races, we were six-tenths off on average and we were able to come back during the season,” he said.
“We need to keep the same approach. It doesn’t matter the gap, it doesn’t matter the results of today. We need to try to do a better job next week to improve the potential and also the extraction of the potential of the car, its operation. We have to improve everywhere. It’s quite difficult to get the best of the car, and we have also to improve on this, on the drivability, let’s call it, to get the best from the potential.”
