Twenty-four hours is a long time in Formula One. Just on Saturday, Lewis Hamilton was riding high, optimism radiating, after his first taste of victory in the famous Ferrari red, albeit in the shorter sprint format.
By Sunday night, long after dusk fell in Shanghai, the Briton and his beleaguered team had hit rock bottom.
Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc’s disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix represents a new nadir for Ferrari, just two races into the 2025 F1 season. Beyond any strategy errors or clashes on track – of which there were both on Sunday – failing to produce a legal car for the customary post-race checks is an embarrassing own-goal.
Make that two own-goals. Perhaps the only saving grace is that it did not cost them more than 18 points, given Hamilton and Leclerc finished only sixth and fifth respectively.
Hamilton’s car was found to fail a technical check due to the skid wear of the thickness of the plank underneath the car, beyond the permitted nine millimetres. Hamilton’s measured at 8.6mm on the left-hand side and centre-line, and 8.5mm on the right-hand side.
That’s all it was: 0.5mm. The length of a credit card. But once the FIA’s chief scrutineer Jo Bauer sent it to the stewards, it was a slam-dunk DSQ. And there’s no doubt it’s a brutal verdict – but it’s a marginal gain in a marginal gains sport.
Yet while Ferrari acknowledged in a statement they will “make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again”, the sad reality is that they’ve been here before.
In 2023, Leclerc was disqualified from the United States GP for the exact same reason: plank wear. Ironically, Hamilton was also excluded for the same reason at the same race, though of course then he was racing for Mercedes.
There are legitimate reasons for this error, as cataclysmic as the consequences are. China was the first sprint weekend of the season, meaning the teams had less time to trial different setups with the car. Hamilton admitted post-race on Sunday – prior to news of his DSQ – that the team had tried something different with his car ahead of Saturday’s qualifying session.
An odd direction to take, one may think, given his sprint race win a matter of hours earlier.
“Ultimately we had a pretty decent car in the sprint, we made some changes and made it worse,” Hamilton said, prior to his sixth-place finish being wiped out.
“We made it quite a bit worse, I hadn’t tested it, we [him and Leclerc] both went that way and it was bad. I know not to do that again.”
Ultimately, the lower the ride height of the car, the quicker it goes. But for safety reasons, there has to be a limit to the car’s depth. With unclear forecasts in terms of track evolvement and tyre development, Ferrari essentially toed the line in search of optimum performance – and crept marginally over that line.
TOP-10 - CHINESE GRAND PRIX
1. Oscar Piastri
2. Lando Norris
3. George Russell
4. Max Verstappen
5. Esteban Ocon
6. Kimi Antonelli
7. Alex Albon
8. Ollie Bearman
9. Lance Stroll
10. Carlos Sainz
As for Leclerc, his car was found to be 1kg under the permitted weight of 900kg. Again fine margins, inevitably not helped by the surprise of this 56-lap grand prix being a one-stop race. Alpine’s Pierre Gasly also came a cropper, costing him and his team their first points of the season. It was the first time three drivers had been disqualified from a Formula 1 grand prix since 2004.
But 16 other drivers (with Fernando Alonso earlier retiring) finished the race legally. It is calamitous that a team of Ferrari’s stature, pedigree and experience (they are the only team to be present in every F1 season since 1950) could make these errors. As welcoming as his laid-back, amusing demeanour is, team principal Fred Vasseur has serious work to do to eradicate such blunders ahead of the next race in Japan in two weeks.
Beyond Hamilton’s frosty exchanges with new race engineer Riccardo Adami last week in Australia – of which there were more clashes of styles on Sunday, as Hamilton communicated his wish to allow Leclerc to pass him – the seven-time world champion will quickly lose faith if the team cannot do the basics correctly.
And the ramifications on the leaderboard? Just two races in, they are already severe.
Ferrari trail leaders McLaren - who secured a peerless one-two finish with Oscar Piastri taking the win from Lando Norris - by 61 points, with the wiping of Hamilton and Leclerc’s 18 points.
The Brit is languishing in ninth place in the drivers’ standings, behind the likes of Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll and his Mercedes replacement Kimi Antonelli. Dreams of an eighth world title this year already look far-fetched, despite 22 race weekends to come.
It’s a numbers game. And ignoring the minimal points on offer in the sprint race, Hamilton’s start for Ferrari reads as follows: a 10th-place finish in Australia and a DSQ in China. Already, he trails championship leader Norris by 35 points.
Hamilton won’t be overly downbeat; it’s not his nature, nor is it beneficial. And the sprint gave a glimpse of the performance potential this year. But overall, the joyous aroma of his Scuderia start has quickly evaporated. It has, largely, been a fortnight to forget.
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F1 standings after Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc’s results in China wiped out
