Lewis Hamilton struggled in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix, and he is still dealing with the fallout from his disqualification in China.
Because of the nature of ground-effects cars, a higher ride-height costs performance, and Lewis Hamilton has explained how his China disqualification is affecting Ferrari’s F1 car’s performance in Japan. Hamilton’s sixth-place finish in Shanghai was erased from the record books after it was discovered that his SF-25 had worn the skid-block more than the regulations permit. At Suzuka, Ferrari had to raise the ride height to keep the block from hitting the track and wearing itself out. Hamilton labored to eighth place on the grid for the Japanese GP, his worst qualifying at Suzuka since ninth for McLaren in 2012.
“It is obviously not good enough from my side, to qualify eighth, but I was happy to get into Q3 and it was a really tight battle out there, I just didn’t get great laps in Q3,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 after explaining his struggles with understeer throughout the session. “Yes, we’re a bit higher than we would like to be, but I don’t know if everyone is in the same boat in that respect, but particularly after the last race, we’re a bit higher than we would want to be, that’s usually the knock-on effect from the weekend like we had before,” Hamilton said.
“Charles performed a fantastic job. During qualifying, I was unable to crank out a lot of understeer since we went in different setup directions.
Hamilton continued, “if you have a qualifying like I’ve just had, you hope for rain.” Rain is predicted for race day.
