Lewis Hamilton reveals ‘underperforming’ Ferrari part to be addressed

Aside from his comfortable Sprint victory in China, Hamilton has finished behind Leclerc in all three Grands Prix for Ferrari so far, with Leclerc having driven a somewhat lonely race behind the podium finishers of Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at Suzuka.

In a race of few on-track overtakes, Hamilton moved past Isack Hadjar to earn a P7 finish, behind the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.

After the chequered flag, Hamilton revealed a part of his car had not been performing up to scratch in the first three races, telling Sky F1 that “I’m really hoping when that’s fixed, I’ll start getting a bit better results.”

Speaking separately to assembled reporters at Suzuka, he explained that the speed he had in his Ferrari was all he could extract on the day.

“I’m happy I moved forwards,” Hamilton said after the race.

“I’m really hoping in the next race we’ll see, hopefully, some positive changes. Through the first three races, there’s been a bit of a deficit between both sides of the garage, on an element of the car, so on my side, something underperforming.

“So it’s good to know. I mean, with what I had, that’s the best result I could get.

“My pace, I think considering, as I said, I was maximum today. I didn’t have anything else in the car.

“We’ve got underperformance happening at the rear of the car this weekend, and obviously qualifying position is key.

“I think I probably would have been overtaken by the Mercedes if I was any further ahead, and I’m hoping the next race, we can somehow get a bit closer.”

With a short turnaround to the Bahrain Grand Prix next weekend, Hamilton placed Ferrari as fourth in the current pecking order behind McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull.

He acknowledged there will be “progress” on the car, but did not confirm whether or not the SF-25 will have upgrades attached in Sakhir.

When asked about the team’s prospects next weekend, he replied: “It’s definitely going to be interesting, for sure. I just hope we’re a little bit closer.

“I think we’re probably the fourth fastest, clearly, at the moment, and I think we are a little bit off the other guys in terms of performance downforce level wise, so we’ve got some work to do to close the gap.

“We will slowly progress the car. It’ll be interesting to see when people get upgrades over the season.

“We’ve got a lot of work to be able to close the gap into the top cars, the top guys. They’ve probably got three or four tenths on us, so we’ve got a lot of work to bring upgrades for that.”