Ferrari blames one-stop strategy for Charles Leclerc’s disqualification in China. Ferrari justified Charles Leclerc's underweight SF-25 by pointing to his one-stop strategy.

The official statement from the Scuderia from Maranello
A record-breaking Sunday for Ferrari, but not in a positive way. The Scuderia from Maranello finished the Chinese GP in fifth and sixth place, with Charles Leclerc ahead of Lewis Hamilton, but both cars were found to be non-compliant during technical inspections.

The SF-25 #16 was underweight, while the #44 had excessive floor wear. Disqualifications were inevitable, leaving Ferrari with only the 12 points earned in yesterday’s Sprint. Never before in F1 history had a team’s cars been disqualified after a race for two different reasons.

Ferrari released an official statement following the disqualifications of both cars: “Today, Charles adopted a one-stop strategy, which led to very high tire wear, causing the car to be underweight,” the statement reads. “As for the wear on Lewis’s car floor (the skid block), we miscalculated the degradation by a small margin. There was no intention of gaining an advantage. We will learn from what happened today and ensure we do not repeat the same mistakes. Clearly, this is not how we wanted to end the Chinese GP weekend, neither for ourselves nor for our fans who support us tirelessly.”

Ferrari therefore justified Charles Leclerc’s underweight SF-25 by pointing to his one-stop strategy, which led to excessive tire wear. With fewer pit stops than rivals, his car carried significantly less rubber by the end of the race, reducing its overall weight. The Maranello team argued that this contributed to the minor shortfall below the FIA’s minimum limit, framing it as an unintended consequence rather than a deliberate breach of regulations.