2025 Shanghai race: Ferrari sets unflattering record in its 1,100 F1 Grand Prix. Ferrari entered the history books of Formula 1 in the Chinese GP, but from the wrong side.

Sunday Nightmare
Ferrari entered the history books of Formula 1 in the Chinese GP, but from the wrong side. The double disqualification of both cars – Charles Leclerc’s for being underweight, Lewis Hamilton’s for an excessively worn floor – marks a nightmarish first for the Prancing Horse. Never before, in the 1,099 Grand Prix that preceded this one, had Ferrari faced the exclusion of two cars in the same race due to disqualifications. The only comparable precedent is the 1999 Malaysian GP, when Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine were disqualified for irregular side skirts, but in that case, both cars were reinstated after an appeal. Certainly not the record Maranello desired, and now the joy of Lewis Hamilton’s Sprint win on Saturday seems a distant memory.

In Formula 1’s history, a double disqualification of both cars from the same team is a rare event, though not unheard of. The last similar case was in 2019, during the Japanese GP, when Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg were disqualified for using an illegal brake balance modification. On that occasion, both cars lost points.

Recent Precedents: Never Two Different Reasons
Other examples from the relatively recent era of F1 include the double disqualification of the Saubers in the 2011 Australian GP, Midland in the 2006 German GP, and especially BAR in the 2005 San Marino GP. In that case, the cars were found to have cheated with fuel management, with the discovery of an additional fuel tank, and were excluded from competing in the next two GPs.

However, today marks the first time – at least in the modern era of F1 – that both cars from the same team were disqualified for different reasons in the same Grand Prix. A heavy blow for team principal Fred Vasseur and the entire Ferrari team. The season is long, and there will be opportunities to erase this disastrous Sunday from memory, but certainly much of the pre-season enthusiasm surrounding Lewis Hamilton’s arrival now seems to have vanished. It will need to be rebuilt on track, race by race, with more attention to fuel, the floor, and other similar ‘details’.