Lewis Hamilton won the Shanghai Sprint but Ferrari struggled in the Chinese Grand Prix, and Fred Vasseur is now clear on the potential cost of bouncing back in Japan.
Formula 1 hits Suzuka next week for round three of the 2025 campaign, plus the first race in a triple-header with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The Japanese Grand Prix will also give Ferrari an opportunity to respond after the Scuderia’s disappointing regression in form in Shanghai.
Hamilton won his first race for Ferrari in the Shanghai Sprint as the Briton converted his first pole position for the pride of Italy into the victory. The 40-year-old usurped Max Verstappen for P1 on the F1 Sprint grid by only 0.018 seconds and utilised the clean air to win by 6.889s.
Fred Vasseur fears Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc pushing Ferrari’s car ‘exposes’ errors
Yet Hamilton and Ferrari changed his Sprint-winning set-up before qualifying for the Chinese GP and it backfired. The seven-time champion struggled for balance and he was even slower than Charles Leclerc in the race, despite his teammate losing a front wing endplate on Lap 1.
To make things worse, both Ferraris were disqualified from the Chinese GP after Leclerc and Hamilton had only secured P5 and P6. Leclerc’s SF-25 was found to be 1kg under the 800kg minimum weight during post-race checks and Hamilton’s car endured excessive plank wear.
READ MORE: All you need to know about Scuderia Ferrari from team principal to factory
The data Ferrari collected in Shanghai offered team principal Vasseur reason to believe their car is ‘not bad’, however. Yet, to bounce back from their double-DSQ in Japan, Vasseur fears Hamilton and Leclerc needing to maximise their car could ‘expose’ Ferrari to other mistakes.
Vasseur told L’Equipe: “I see that the car is not bad, we have the numbers to prove it. To win we will have to get close to our full potential, but this exposes you to possible errors.”
Lewis Hamilton’s Chinese GP set-up issues support Fred Vasseur’s Japanese GP fears
Despite Vasseur’s confidence in the data collected in Shanghai, reports in Italy following the race have claimed that Ferrari’s double Chinese GP DSQ revealed their ‘anxiety’ over the SF-25’s performance. Their car has also proven to be more complex than planned in the winter.
Additionally, the reasons for Leclerc and Hamilton’s disqualifications in Shanghai would not have yielded much (if any) of a performance benefit. The former’s SF-25 was likely only 1kg underweight as turning a two-pit stop race into a one-stopper can lose around eight-10kg.
A bigger cause for concern in Maranello would be how changing Hamilton’s set-up after the Briton won the Shanghai Sprint meant he struggled for balance in the Chinese GP. Vasseur’s fears for pushing the SF-25 in Japan exposing Ferrari’s flaws surely rest in Hamilton’s issues.
