Lewis Hamilton disappointed at the end of the Japanese GP
What didn’t work on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari during the 2025 Japanese GP? The British champion started from eighth on the grid on hard tyres, while all his rivals opted for mediums, switching to the yellow-banded Pirellis at the end of the race but never really managing to trouble the leading drivers from the top teams. During post-race interviews, the seven-time Formula 1 world champion spoke to British TV about a mysterious issue with the current SF-25 package, which he hopes will be resolved with upcoming technical updates.
The mysterious problem on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari
“I think I did my best today,” Lewis Hamilton said after his third race with Ferrari, “but overall the performance is lacking compared to all the cars ahead of me, especially Mercedes, McLaren, and obviously Red Bull. We’ve found something on the car that hasn’t been working over the last three races. So I really hope that once the issue is fixed, I’ll start getting better results. I’m losing just over a tenth per lap because of this problem, so hopefully it will be solved in the next races. The team is aware of the issue, even if they don’t know what’s causing it yet, but as I said, when the upgrades arrive, we hope it will be gone and that we can be back on par with the other cars.”
A vague reference, which could however be linked to the much-discussed ride height and the fact that the Prancing Horse’s car always has to run slightly higher than rival machines, and as a result cannot fully exploit its technical potential. It’s currently impossible to know whether the solution might lie in the new floor expected to debut in Bahrain, an upgrade that had already been scheduled since the start of the season, before Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton hit the track for pre-season testing in Sakhir.
Ferrari third or fourth force on track, according to Lewis Hamilton
“Considering what I had,” Lewis Hamilton added, “I’m relatively satisfied with the race pace, and overall the team’s performance was good. I think Riccardo (Adami, his race engineer, with whom there were some new tense exchanges shown live on TV) and I did a great job, as did the engineers and mechanics.”
“It was a pretty lonely race,” Sir Lewis then told F1TV, “and I really didn’t have anyone around me. The start was good considering I was the only one on hard tyres, and I had to work to get them up to temperature in the first few laps and stay close to the other drivers on mediums. I extended the stint as much as I could, but overall, we just didn’t have the pace.”
Lewis Hamilton finally suggested that Ferrari is currently the fourth-best team: “Right now, it seems like we’re third or fourth, behind Red Bull, McLaren, and Mercedes, and then us. We’ve got improvements to make.”
