It was the best of times, it was the worst of times in Shanghai for Lewis Hamilton. On Saturday morning the seven times world champion took the chequered flag for the first time for Ferrari this season.

His win in the Sprint was duly celebrated, but the team took the decision to change the setup on his and Charles Leclerc’s SF-25 cars before Grand Prix qualifying. The result was underwhelming as  Hamilton and his team mate then qualified 5th and 6th respectively.

At the start of the Grand Prix, Leclerc took a run down the inside of Lewis and clipped his right rear tyre causing a price of the Ferrari’s from wing endplate to fly off losing the Monegasque driver “20 to 30 points of downforce.”

 

 

 

Hamilton disqualified in China

Regardless Leclerc had better pace on the day and eventually a switch around was orchestrated by the team to allow their quicker driver through. Hamilton was then called in by the team making his race a two stopper, while most of the field managed on one, chi just added insult to injury for the British driver.

Leclerc paid the price for his loss of downforce late in the race, as his tyres began to degrade while he was being hunted down by Max Verstappen. The work champion breezed by the Ferrari after a calculated switch to the inside of turn 2, completing the move as he swept around the outside of turn 3 leaving Leclerc to come home in P5 with Hamilton behind him.

Yet as the team’s were packing up a drama was unfolding at the FIA’s scrutineering of the post race cars. Pierre Gasly and Charles Leclerc were reported to the FIA stewards for having underweight cars, whilst Lewis Hamilton was also referred for in effect having the ride height on his car too low.

Leclerc had lost his front wing endplate, but the FIA replaced it with another they said “weighed more” than the original, yet with the fuel drained the Ferrari car was found to be 1kg under the legal limit. Gasly’s Alpine was the same amount shy. Hamilton had suffered excessive wear on the plank underneath his car which should have a post race thickness of 9mm. It measure 8.5mm and the world champion along with Leclerc and Gasly was thrown out of the race.

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Lewis cagey about ride height question

Hamilton had been giving an interview prior to the news he was being referred to the stewards and the subject of the ride height of his car was raised by the Sky Italy presenter.

“I’m glad that we tried something… I was struggling with performance so… ultimately we had a pretty decent car in the Sprint and then we made some changes because we were trying to move forwards and improve the carbon we made it quite a bit worse going into qualifying and then it was even worse in the race.”

Hamilton was then asked if raising the ride height on the Ferrari was more of a problem than for other teams. He appeared to sand bag with his reply, asking “Who said that? I don’t know who said that we lifted the car…” giving the impression that changes in the ride height were top secret and for the eyes of the Ferrari engineers only.

Lewis then contradicted himself stating first that the ride height had not been adjusted by the team, before admitting it was in fact one of the changes made after the Sprint.

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“No… [we didn’t change the ride height] we made some other changes mostly – as well as that [adjusting ride height] – but not massively just small amounts, but all the pieces put together made it quite a bit worse,” added Hamilton.

Lewis went on to throw Ferrari under the bus for the setup changes made for Grand Prix qualifying, claiming it was something he had never tried before. “Charles tested something in Bahrain, I hadn’t tested it, but we both went that way [with the new setup] and it was bad. I know not to do that again,” he concluded.

Clearly ride height was ultimately an issue for Hamilton given it was the reason his plank was too worn with the car having been run too low. Interestingly Charles Leclerc’s car did not suffer the same fate even though Hamilton implies they were both on his “Bahrain” setup which adds to the mystery of what went on at Ferrari.

Ferrari have a history of ride height infringements as Charles Leclerc was disqualified for the same offence at the 2023 US Grand Prix. Hamilton too was disqualified that day in his Mercedes, which was interestingly also a Sprint weekend.

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Last ride height DSQ at a Sprint

This would suggest the teams and Ferrari now caught out twice believe different ride heights are necessary on the weekends where there is first a race on Saturday with a third of fuel in the tanks and another on Sunday when the cars are brimmed to the top with petrol to cover the 300km required.

Also the extra 66 kilograms of fuel in the cars for a Grand Prix will have a bearing on how high the ride height of the car is at the start of the race and it could be the wear metric from the sessions before the Grand Prix were skewed by Ferrari data which didn’t represent the plank wear on full tanks.

Yet if we look back to 2023 we can see there were reasons Mercedes made the mistake they did in Austin Texas. Both Russell and Hamilton that year had been complaining about rear end stability and two weeks earlier in Japan, the W14 looked a handful through the high speed Esses.

Come the race at COTA, these problems had disappeared in the opening section of the lap which closely resembles the Suzuka Esses. Prior to his disqualification, Hamilton eulogised over the upgrade to the floor, stating “the step we were able to take this weekend has given me a little bit more confidence in the car to throw it into the corners,” said the seven-time champion.

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Ferrari statement on their mistakes

Whether it was a Ferrari miscalculation or another behind the scenes mistake during a chaotic Sprint weekend, only Ferrari know at present but they may come clean next time out in Japan. Having both cars thrown out of the Chinese GP and the loss of eighteen points is a major embarrassment for the Scuderia who released a statement on the matter after the stewards had concluded their deliberations.

“Charles was on a one-stop strategy today and this meant his tyre wear was very high, causing the car to be underweight.

“With regard to Lewis’ skid wear, we misjudged the consumption by a small margin. There was no intention to gain any advantage. We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again. Clearly, it’s not the way we wanted to end our Chinese GP weekend, neither for ourselves, nor for our fans whose support for us is unwavering.”

 

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FIA crisis: F1 discusses retaining current power units

The Chinese Grand Prix may well have been a bit of a borefest, but off track an incredible back story is taking shape. The FIA have now confirmed they are in talks to ditch the much hated F1 hybrid power units.

Formula One entered its hybrid era in 2014 as the global auto manufacturers predicted this would be the shape of the future of road cars. Yet due an acceleration in the net zero agenda, hybrid road cars are proving to be merely a bridge head to a full electric future.

Given that Formula One prides itself on being at the cutting edge of auto technology, the decision to continue with the hugely expensive and hefty hybrids is looking a poor one from the FIA. Not only will the 2026 power units continue with the hybrid technology, they will be upping the electrical power output to 50% of the total…. READ MORE