With Lewis Hamilton making reference to Ferrari set-up changes after the Sprint, “raising your ride height” may have been a route they went down.

That SF-25 set-up theory comes from Sky F1 analyst Bernie Collins – formerly of McLaren and Aston Martin – who having been in the Chinese GP paddock, assessed the potential contributing factors to both Ferrari Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc being disqualified after the race.

Ferrari miscalculation? No ‘estimated mass loss’ paddock insight

Lewis Hamilton turned heads at the start of his second race weekend with Ferrari, taking Sprint pole and controlling the mini-race to take victory, but after Hamilton confirmed setup changes were made on the SF-25 for qualifying and the race, Ferrari’s pace vanished.

Leclerc would finish the Chinese GP P5 and Hamilton P6, but their Sunday worsened after the chequered flag when Leclerc was disqualified after the FIA deemed his car underweight, while Hamilton was kicked out due to excessive plank wear.

And in a Sky Sports interview, Collins – the former McLaren senior performance engineer and Aston Martin strategy chief – was asked if the Ferrari SF-25 set-up changes could have contributed to Hamilton’s DQ.

“I don’t think it’s unusual to change set-up after the Sprint because you know in the Sprint that you’re never going to run 100kg of fuel,” she said.

“One of those changes could be raising your ride height because you know you will have to start on higher fuel.

“What’s different between this and Austin two years ago [when Hamilton – then of Mercedes – was disqualified for the same reason], you were not allowed to change the set-up between the Sprint and main race, so when you’ve got the plank-wear read in the Sprint, you couldn’t react to it.

“In the Sprint, there was a lot more management than the main race because they did more laps pushing on a hard tyre, whereas on the medium they did a lot of management in the Sprint, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the wear and fuel usage went up in the main race.”

She added: “It would be standard for everyone to raise the car in Australia because of the bumps and they are detrimental to downforce and plank wear.

“In Australia, Ferrari were not that strong. Some of it was down to strategy but the performance in qualifying was not that strong, so maybe they have a car that’s very sensitive to ride height in terms of aero performance. All of these cars are because they’re all ground-effect cars, but maybe it is more sensitive than others.

“I would be surprised that the Sprint in China was not a good enough indication that you would be illegal on plank wear.

“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.

“You want to be fit to run a range of ride heights because of all these range of tracks. For example, in Austria there are intense kerbs so you want to add a bit of ride height there.

“Maybe the aero platform is too peaky.”

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The strategy of choice for much of the grid in China proved a one-stop, going from Pirelli mediums to hards, but Hamilton went against the grain with a two-stop, going medium-hard-hard.

So, Collins was asked if this could have had an impact on plank wear on Hamilton’s Ferrari.

“The two-stopper will lead to pushing more on each lap,” she replied. “The only slight counter to that for Lewis is because he did two stints on the hard, he goes through that graining phase, which does control the pace a little bit.

“The only other thing for Lewis is, I don’t know if he had any damage from the Leclerc incident? The FIA say there were ‘no mitigating circumstances’ and if Ferrari could prove damage or lack of downforce, they would have been able to do that but they didn’t.”

And on the other side of the garage, after Ferrari admitted to misjudging the amount of tyre wear for him on the hard tyres, leading to his underweight car and disqualification, Collins said she had heard in the paddock that teams were in the dark over how much tyre wear to expect on the hard compound.

“As for Leclerc, who did a one-stop, people were saying maybe a one-stop was possible,” she continued. “They didn’t know how much the hard tyre would wear, so they didn’t have an estimated mass loss for the hard tyre, but they are allowed to take pick-up and they changed Leclerc’s front wing.

“I don’t know where the loss in mass has come from.”

That double disqualification leaves Ferrari P5 in the early Constructors’ standings, already 61 points behind leaders McLaren.

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