Lewis Hamilton adopts Charles Leclerc’s setup at Austrian GP but remains concerned. Lewis Hamilton tested a setup closer to Charles Leclerc’s at the Austrian GP.

Lewis Hamilton finished the Austrian GP behind his teammate Charles Leclerc. The seven-time world champion appeared pleased with Ferrari’s progress but is still not fully satisfied.

In Austrian GP qualifying, Lewis Hamilton achieved his best result since joining Ferrari, excluding the Chinese Sprint race: a fourth place, not far from Charles Leclerc. The updates brought by the Maranello team clearly helped the SF-25 make progress, but the Briton remains unsatisfied.

Since the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season, Ferrari has struggled to consistently operate the tyres within the ideal window, particularly during qualifying. However, this weekend both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton secured strong results in Austrian GP qualifying: second and fourth respectively. Despite this, the gap to McLaren remains significant.

A change in setup
After the Austrian GP, Lewis Hamilton revealed to the media, including ScuderiaFans.com, that he had made changes to his car’s setup: “A setup a bit closer to Charles [Leclerc]. I’m just struggling with the balance. He [Leclerc] drives a car that’s very oversteery. Somehow, he slides the rear and it doesn’t degrade. When I let the rear slide, I get massive degradation. It’s something you have to get used to. Presumably Carlos [Sainz Jr.] took a couple of years to adapt. I don’t want to do that.” – the seven-time Formula 1 world champion pointed out.

Although the two Ferrari drivers were quite close in qualifying, the race told a different story. Lewis Hamilton finished the Austrian GP 29 seconds behind the leader and around 10 seconds behind his Maranello teammate. The British driver commented on this gap: “I’m still losing a lot of ground. Losing eight, nine seconds to Charles [Leclerc]. It’s something I have to acknowledge.”

The gap to McLaren
This weekend, Ferrari introduced updates aimed at optimizing the current package, and more are expected soon. However, Lewis Hamilton believes they might not be enough to challenge McLaren: “Well, compared to McLaren, I don’t think anyone is catching them. But never say never. Hopefully with our next upgrade, assuming it works as we hope, maybe that brings us a little closer. But we’re not a minute behind this weekend, which is great.” – he concluded.