Much has been made of the 2025 Ferrari lineup, as seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton enters the team and brings a significant challenge to longtime Scuderia driver Charles Leclerc.

And already some tension between the two highly capable drivers seems to have bubbled to the surface — at least, according to Ralf Schumacher.

Ralf Schumacher spots Hamilton’s “annoyance”

Former Formula 1 driver and pundit Ralf Schumacher is no stranger to tension, and he feels he’s spotted some at Ferrari in 2025 — and it has to do with the star-studded driver lineup at the team.

The Scuderia has dominated headlines in the buildup to the season thanks to its signing of seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton. The driver left a 12-year stint at Mercedes with the hope of winning a record-breaking eighth title with the most longstanding team in F1.

But that in and of itself presents a complication, as his teammate is now Ferrari stalwart Charles Leclerc.

So much of the pre-season chatter centered on how these two drivers would get along, and how they would perform in comparison to one another — and it’s here that Schumacher has spotted the first signs of discord.

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Speaking to Formel1.de after the Chinese Grand Prix, Schumacher gave plaudits to Hamilton for finding his footing in the SF-25 so quickly at Shanghai — but he noted that race day itself was something completely different.

“When you don’t know the team that well, you’re new, until you get the hang of it, until your engineer understands you, it takes a few months,” he explained, “and I think you saw that on Sunday.”

In China, both Ferraris lacked pace compared to McLaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes, and their plight was only made all the worse by separate post-race disqualifications for both cars.

The biggest frustration, though, took place in the race, as Hamilton in particular struggled to find pace compared to Leclerc.

Schumacher continued, “Of course, it wasn’t in free air, which makes a big difference in China, and his teammate passed him with the broken wing because I have to say, for the aerodynamicists, put six broken front wings in, they will work just as well or better than a whole one.

“So, it’s a bit of a hard one to understand, but I think he did a good, solid job, and I think Charles Leclerc also woke up.

“I think that annoyed him, and there was some tension. Hamilton wasn’t used to being told to drive fast on the teammate’s side.”

Will we see a repeat of these tensions in Japan? We’ll find out when practice kicks off on Friday.

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