Lewis Hamilton posted the best Grand Prix result of his Ferrari career in Bahrain last weekend. Having qualified a deeply disappointing P9, he rallied to P5 on race day.
Hamilton benefitted from the timing of the safety car, which came before his second stop, but he’d shown formidable pace on the mediums during his second stint. He executed a number of overtakes, including one on old rival Max Verstappen.
The 40-year-old fell away from the George Russell/Lando Norris/Charles Leclerc battle following the restart, but after the chequered flag, he sounded much more optimistic than he had 24 hours earlier. His efforts earned him the driver of the day award.
While Hamilton won the Sprint in China, his disqualification on Sunday in Shanghai meant he didn’t technically have a top-six finish to his name. He put that right here to climb up to seventh in the championship.
Lewis Hamilton won’t pursue radical set-up experiments at Ferrari like he did at Mercedes
P7 was where Hamilton finished last year – the poorest championship position of his F1 career. Thus he won’t be satisfied if he repeats that result, but he appears to have made a breakthrough in his understanding of the SF-25.
Speaking on Sunday evening, Hamilton said he wants to go down the same route as Leclerc, who has beaten him convincingly at the last two Grands Prix. Leclerc apparently chooses a set-up at the start of a weekend and only deviates from it slightly, if at all.
Thus Hamilton is aiming to start the Saudi Arabia weekend in a ‘more convenient spot’ and then ‘apply the techniques’ he learned in Sakhir. According to The Telegraph, this was a ‘hint’ that he won’t pursue the ‘wacky’ balance experiments that characterised his final years at Mercedes.
‘Wacky’ was the word trackside boss Andrew Shovlin used to describe his set-up at the 2021 Styrian GP. But it wasn’t just one race – Hamilton experimented with his car for three seasons at Brackley.
Former Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali has seen signs of hope for Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton fans will be delighted by his post-Bahrain comments. They have repeatedly bemoaned the risks he’s taken with his engineers.
Indeed, Hamilton supporters called him ’embarrassing’ after Japanese GP qualifying, where he admitted that he’d gone in the wrong direction before Leclerc qualified five places ahead. McLaren’s Lando Norris is aware that the seven-time world champion isn’t yet comfortable in his new machinery.
Ferrari introduced an upgrade last weekend, headlined by a new floor. While their podium drought continues, they did produce their strongest showing of the year.
And Stefano Domenicali is ‘convinced’ Ferrari will win in 2025, pointing to the relatively small gaps at the front of the grid. Whether that alone satisfies the Tifosi remains to be seen.
