From Charles Leclerc’s broken front wing endplate creating a flexi wing to Lewis Hamilton’s ride height, there were several theories bandied about in China when it came to Ferrari’s SF-25.

Prior to their double disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix, Ferrari brought in a double points haul with Leclerc crossing the line ahead of Hamilton. And he did so despite a broken front wing.

Charles Leclerc: Still faster to have a full front wing

Tagging his team-mate on the opening lap, Leclerc was missing 20 to 30 points of downforce because of the broken endplate.

But instead of pitting him for a new nose, Ferrari kept him out and Leclerc was able to race his way to fifth at the line.

No sooner had the chequered flag dropped than speculation began, with some claiming the broken endplate created a flexi wing, which benefitted Leclerc as it created more downforce.

“One thing that a few engineers have said to me just walking back to the podium, and caveated by saying ‘Don’t quote me on it’, is they all thought the wing was flexing a bit more,” former F1 driver Karun Chandhok told Sky F1.

“You could see it was getting closer to the ground and producing a bit more downforce. If you see the left side, it was very close to the ground. Legally you can’t design a car without the endplates, so they can’t just take them off.”

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Leclerc though, scoffed at the suggestion that running a broken front wing helped him, the driver adamant he would’ve been faster with a full wing attached to his SF-25.

“I can assure you that it’s never a good thing to have a broken front wing, so it’s not something I want to target for the rest of the year,” he quipped.

“There were some interesting things that we looked at to try and understand where was this performance coming from.

“I honestly believe that the performance was really strong in terms of race pace. I had made some changes already on the Saturday. It was really strong, especially at the end of the stint, considering I was in traffic.

“Then we made some changes, and we did a step forward for Sunday’s race. So I think, I think the overall pace was very strong.

“I believe we would have been stronger with a full front wing, but yeah, I understand it was kind of surprising, because obviously, with damage like that one, I was also expecting to be slower. But by changing the tools and adapting the driving, it didn’t have as much of an influence as we thought.

“But it is still faster to have a full front wing.”

But that wasn’t the only theory that was debated after the Grand Prix, with Hamilton’s disqualification for excessive skid block wear raising questions about the car’s ride height.

“Maybe they have a car that’s very sensitive to ride height in terms of aero performance,” said former Aston Martin strategist Bernie Collins. “If they have got what we would call a ‘peaky’ ride height, which means there’s a very small optimum ride height that you can have a good aerodynamic platform in, that is an issue for a car.”

She added: “Maybe the aero platform is too peaky.”

Asked if the SF-25 was ride height ‘sensitive’, Leclerc replied: “I won’t go into the very specific details. I think we’re starting to understand this car and have some kind of ideas where we are lacking. I think in Australia, it was quite well understood.

“I think that in China, Lewis did an outstanding job on Friday when maybe drivers didn’t put everything together in qualifying, and he managed to put everything together and managed to outperform a little bit the car, I believe.

“Then tyre degradation being a big thing. When you start in front, everything is coming towards you a little bit more. But I think Lewis made a difference on Friday and Saturday in China.

“Then second qualifying, everyone is a bit more up to pace and we saw more the real pace of the car and where we are lacking.

“I think very similar to last year, we have a very, very good kind in terms of race pace that we couldn’t really show until now, because whenever you’re starting in the middle of the pack degradation is a lot worse. You cannot show your real pace. And that’s what happened a bit on Sunday in China.

“So I think the pace is still as good as what we’ve shown on the Saturday with Lewis. However, we cannot use it if we don’t have a better qualifying pace. So yeah, if I take a step back, I think that’s where we need to improve is in qualifying. It was the case also last year. This year seems to be even more a little bit the case. So we’ve got to work on that.”

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