Lewis Hamilton made his debut for Ferrari at the Australian Grand Prix last weekend. Neither he nor Charles Leclerc will remember the outing in Melbourne fondly as their SF-25 cars were much slower than expected following pre-season testing.
The Ferrari pair qualified seventh and eight behind the likes of Carlos Sainz in a Williams and Yuki Tsunoda in the Racing Bull but hopes remained that their race pace was better than their rivals.
As it turned out, Hamilton scrapped him for a point in tenth place and Leclerc collected a few more points for the Scuderia finishing in eighth. Yet their race was somewhat compromised by a strategy decision on the pit wall to leave their drivers out on dry weather tyres while the rest of the field pitted for the wets.
Piastri blew past Hamilton
Even so an out of position Oscar Piastri blew past Hamilton in the closing stages of the race and would have taken Leclerc too had there been another lap. The Aussie having spun at the penultimate turn was recovering from being the last driver on the lead lap and finished just six tenths behind Charles Lelcerc.
Hopes of a better outing in Shanghai remained high for the Ferrari team, although Fred Vasseur was disappointed following the race in Melbourne in the team’s efforts over the winter. Having finished last year as the strongest team in the field, just fourteen points behind McLaren, Ferrari elected to build an entire new car for 2025 rather than an evolution of their 2024 F1 challenger.
The result is there are handling characteristics the team are now facing which weren’t present in the SF-24 and in particular with Lewis Hamilton’s car the issue is described by the team as “strange.” To say there is panic in Maranello would be an overstatement, but it is true there are seismic questions being asked as to whether the team has taken the wrong development direction.
Ironically for Hamilton, Mercedes appear to have leaped over Ferrari in the F1 pecking order and the seven times world champion’s replacement had a Stella debut down under. Kimi Antonelli carved his way through the field from his start position of 18th, to finish fourth just two seconds behind his team mate George Russell.
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Ferrari to suffer from new flexi wing rules
Hamilton’s record in Shanghai is peerless having won the event six times during his career. The next best driver in the field when visiting China is Fernando Alonso who has won the event twice in 2005 and in 2013 for Ferrari. Yet hopes of a record seventh win this weekend for Lewis are low and the FIA’s sudden decision to clamp down on Flexi wings in Shanghai are concerning engineers in the Scuderia’s garage.
F1’s governing body has slashed the tolerance for flexing allowed for the static deflection test for the rear wing from 2mm to 0.5mm. That said given the incredible short notice of the technical directive issued this week, for China alone an incremental 0.25mm will be accepted as legal.
ESPN F1 writer, Laurence Edmondson, now claims there are those within Ferrari who believe compliance with the new test will hurt the SF25’s performance. The suggestion is clear that Ferrari have gone big in investing in rear wing flexibility, which was originally only to be tested more stringently come the Spanish Grand Prix.
Edmondson tells the uncapped F1 podcast that Red Bull are particular enthusiastic over the FIA’s sudden U-Turn. “From what we understand and from what’s been said and the whispers in the paddock, it seems like Red Bull are very keen for this to happen, because they think it will probably slow down their main rivals McLaren.
Ferrari ’25 car design disappointing
“There’s some suggestion that Ferrari are doing it too,” he added. There’s even some suggestion that Mercedes have had something on the rear wing where the rear wing flexes slightly. The proof will be in the pudding.”
Analysis from pre-season testing and the Melbourne weekend suggest Ferrari have made improvements this year on their high speed cornering. Of course this would be the case if the rear wing is dropping drag when loaded by tons of air pressure and a key Ferrari objective may have been wiped out in a matter of days by the new TD.
Conversely Ferrari are slower this year in the medium speed corners, which feature heavily around the Shanghai circuit layout. So Ferrari are facing the worst of both worlds this weekend as they may labour down the 1.1km back straight with their “mini-DRS’ feature now banned.
Ferrari’s race pace simulations on Friday in Melbourne “shocked” Lando Norris but as the temperatures climbed on Saturday this Ferrari advantage evaporated. The weather in Shanghai is expected to be cooler this weekend, which should play to Ferrari’s advantage, yet the loss of their flexing rear wing has unknown consequences before the cars hit the track in a few hours time.
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Hamilton radio messages under the microscope
It seems as though Lewis Hamilton is facing another tough weekend ahead and all eyes will be on the radio broadcasts to and from the seven times champion. In Australia Lewis and his engineer Riccardo Adami appeared at odds over the team radio with Hamilton asking for information on where he was “slow.”
Adami then went into information overload, repeatedly telling Hamilton to use his “K1” overtake button. Lewis responded by telling his engineer in effect to calm down with the details and that he was OK with the DRS.
Ex-Ferrari manager in F1 commentator Peter Windsor expressed his disbelief at Ferrari and Hamilton’s apparent lack of information protocols. The Scuderia have made intensive efforts to integrate Hamilton into the team, using all; their previous cars testing allowance in Barcelona before pre-season testing.
Clearly under the pressure of real time racing, Hamilton and Adami had not ironed out how to manage their communication flows. The race engineer has worked with Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel previously, but his style over team radio has always felt odd. He often presents as a mere message taker for his drivers, frequently telling them to wait while he comes back with a response.
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This is a far cry from the relationship Hamilton has been used to with Bono at Mercedes’, where the engineer would often admonish the work champion when he felt he was complaining too much. “Hammer time” was a favourite phrase used by Bonington to informs driver it was time to use up all the grip he had left on his current set of tyres.
Lewis confirmed “Hammer time” was now confined to history and he would need to find an Italian phrase which suited the situation better now he’s joined Ferrari but he was quick to defend the radio chatter from Melbourne as he landed in Shanghai.
Martin Brundle had described the changes as “angsty” but Hamilton hit back claiming the matter had been overblown whilst suggesting the media were ignoring Verstappen and the “abuse” he dishes out to his race engineer.
Yet as with Hamilton and Bono, Verstappen and GP his engineer are close friends both at and away from the track. Team boss Christian Horner has repeatedly described them as “like an old married couple” when the communications get somewhat testy.
Criticism hits a Hamilton raw nerve
Criticism of Hamilton’s radio messages in Australia appear to have hit a raw nerve with the Ferrari driver as he explained at length how the “back and forth” was good natured. “Everyone over-egged [the situation],” claimed Hamilton ahead of the Chinese GP. “It was literally just a back-and-forth. I was very polite in how I suggested it.
He continued, “I said ‘leave it to me, please’. I wasn’t saying ‘F-you’, I wasn’t swearing. It was just at that point I was really struggling with the car and I needed full focus on a couple of things. We’re getting to know each other,” explained Hamilton.
“He [Adami] had two champions or more in the past [sic] and there are no issues between us. Go and listen to the radio calls with others and their engineers – it’s far worse.
“The conversations that Max has had with his engineer over the years and the abuse that the poor guy has taken, and you never write about it, but you write about the smallest little discussion I have with mine,” Hamilton somewhat defensively concluded.
By Lewis’ standards, Melbourne ‘was nothing’
In fact the Melbourne messages were fairly polite when compared to some of Hamilton’s previous outbursts. In Qatar last year he demanded to retire the Mercedes car only to be rebuffed by his engineer for not understanding the rules properly.
Hamilton had been hit with time penalties from the stewards and when told to come in and take his punishment lewis replied, “Park the car mate. Retire the car.” Bono instantly responded, “Negative, negative” but Lewis insisted he disagreed saying, “I’m switching off when I get there mate.”
Pete Bonnington then reminded Hamilton if he did not serve the penalty in this race he would be penalised at the final weekend in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. “If you want a 5-second penalty in the next race then it’s fine. We only have to do one more lap but we will drive through the pit lane,” something Toto Wolff confirmed to have been his instruction later.
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George Russell is “demotivating the entire Mercedes team”
As pre-season Formula One testing drew to a close, the conclusion amongst observers was pretty unanimous. McLaren were the class of the 2025 F1 field. Yet the results from testing are notoriously difficult to judge, given that certain teams did no qualifying simulations and others chose not to perform full tanks race simulations.
Yet come the Australian Grand Prix last weekend, the analysts were proved correct and the MCL39 is the car to catch this season. George Russell despondently noted that the papaya liveried cars had “such an advantage” that “they can stop development now and go fully on 2026”.
Although this is unlikely given in season F1 upgrades often deliver between one to two seconds of improved pace for the teams across the ten months of racing around the globe…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
