Lewis Hamilton has refused to expand on his claim that his Ferrari is operating at a “deficit” compared to the team-mate Charles Leclerc at the start of the F1 2025 season.

Hamilton has had an underwhelming start to his Ferrari career following his blockbuster move from Mercedes over the winter, finishing no higher than seven in his first three races for his new employers.

Lewis Hamilton lifts lid on Charles Leclerc Ferrari setup differences

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Despite claiming his first victory in Ferrari colours in the Chinese GP sprint race last month, Hamilton was disqualified from the main event in Shanghai due to excessive skid-block wear, with Leclerc also excluded from the official results after his car was found to be underweight.

Hamilton’s disqualification appeared to confirm reports that Ferrari have struggled with the ride height of their SF-25 car in the early weeks of the season, with the seven-time World Champion revealing at last weekend’s Japanese GP that the car is currently “running higher than we would like.”

After another poor showing at Suzuka, where the Ferrari drivers adopted contrasting setups for the first time this season, Hamilton seemed to insinuate that he is struggling with an issue affecting only his side of the garage.

Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc: Ferrari head-to-head scores for F1 2025

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👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

He said after the race: “I’m really hoping in the next race we’ll see, hopefully, some positive changes.

“Through the first three races, there’s been a bit of a deficit between both sides of the garage, on an element of the car, so on my side, something underperforming.”

Ferrari are set to introduce their first upgrade of the season at this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of the arrival of a more significant package in Miami next month.

With Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic deputising for Leclerc in first practice, Hamilton is set to lead the team’s evaluation of the new floor on Friday.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on Thursday in Sakhir, Hamilton expressed his confidence that Ferrari can kickstart their season at the circuit which hosted pre-season testing in February.

And he revealed that Leclerc’s Japanese GP setup saw him stick with the configuration Ferrari had established at the first two races, with Hamilton the ones to take a different path at Suzuka.

Asked to expand on the alleged “deficit” between his car and Leclerc’s, Hamilton said: “I can’t expand on it, no.

“But we’ve got an new floor this weekend, so I’m excited. The team has worked really hard to bring [upgrades], as teams do.

“They work incredibly hard to be able to bring upgrades, so to have that here at the track that we tested that at, [with] more knowledge about the car and how to extract more from it, I feel really positive for the rest of the weekend.

“He [Leclerc] had the setup very similar to some of the other races, so I think he was happy with his balance.

“Very similar in China, Melbourne and last weekend. Slightly different, nothing major.

“But, of course, I’m learning all the time from watching Charles work with the team and how he works to set the car up.

“At some places it’s going to be different, which is normal.”

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Ferrari missed out on the Constructors’ Championship to McLaren by just 14 points at the end of 2024 as the Woking team took their first teams’ title in 26 years.

With Ferrari struggling at the start of F1 2025, the team currently sit fourth in the standings and trail McLaren by 76 points after three races.

Hamilton, who began his career with McLaren in 2007 – the year of Ferrari’s most recent Drivers’ Championship triumph with Kimi Raikkonen – has predicted a solid “step forward” for his team in Bahrain.

Yet he has acknowledged that Ferrari’s upgraded floor will not close the gap to McLaren entirely with more work required.

He said: “We’re trying to figure out how to catch them.

“They’ve obviously got a great car, they obviously won the Constructors’ last year.

“They’ve started off very well this this year as have the other two top teams.

“I think we’ve learned a lot over the past few races and I think hopefully this weekend it’s a step forward for us definitely.

“It’s not necessarily closing the gap, but it’s going towards closing the gap.

“It’s not going to close the gap completely.

“But if we can extract more from the car, which is what we’re trying to work on, hopefully we can see better results.”

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