Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time Formula One champion for Ferrari, has disclosed the causes of his performance dip that occurred between his strong performance in the F1 Sprint and the rest of the weekend.
Lewis Hamilton showed considerably better performance at the Chinese Grand Prix after a very challenging first race weekend in Melbourne. The seven-time F1 champion stunned his competitors by clinching the pole position for the Shanghai F1 Sprint with an incredible performance, and he appeared strong from the first laps of the first practice session.
After that, the British driver dominated the 19-lap sprint race to win the Scuderia for the first time. He only finished fifth at the actual grand prix, though, as he had some difficulty keeping up during the main qualifying session.
He got in touch with his teammate Charles Leclerc despite having a spectacular start on Sunday. On Lap 1, Hamilton cut back to the racing line and clipped Leclerc’s front wing as the two entered Turn 2. The Monegasque suffered some damage to his front wing as a result of the crash.
According to Ferrari, the damage resulted in an aerodynamic loss of 20 to 30 points, which often calls for a change, especially on a circuit where the long-radius bends put a premium on front-end grip. Ferrari decided against changing the front wing, though, since doing so would have forced the Monegasque into congested traffic.
Leclerc was faster than the other driver despite the serious damage, so Ferrari asked its drivers to switch places. Then, under pressure from defending champion Max Verstappen, Hamilton decided to pit for new tires and adopted a two-stop strategy—which ultimately proved to be the slower one.
Leclerc and Hamilton ultimately finished fifth and sixth, respectively, but both vehicles were later disqualified after the race because Hamilton’s SF-25 was determined to have a plank violation and the Monegasque’s was found to be under the necessary weight.
The seven-time Formula One champion has evaluated his race weekend in Shanghai and disclosed that the Scuderia made some configuration adjustments following the sprint race, which did not turn out well.
“It was a challenging day, but the entire weekend was terrific, and we’ve come a long way since Melbourne. For qualifying and the race, we experimented with some fresh setup adjustments that didn’t work out, but we can learn from it and use it going forward.
“I had a strong start, but as the race went on, I found it difficult to keep up with the pace. To try to maximise our team’s chances, I advised switching to Charles. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to gain positions, even though the two-stop strategy helped discover some excellent pace towards the last few circuits.
Hamilton struck an optimistic note by asserting that Ferrari will take lessons from the first two weekends, despite the 56-lap race’s lack of pace and performance decline from the early portion of the weekend.
“After going through everything, we’ll learn from it and return stronger. “We’ll keep working hard, but it’s a long road to the championship,” Hamilton said.
