Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc spent FP2 ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix lamenting the performance of their brakes — which Leclerc dubbed “horrendous.”

And according to Hamilton, he found himself suffering from a problem he hasn’t faced so far this season.

Lewis Hamilton faces novel brake problem in Imola

The Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari hasn’t exactly been kind to the pseudonymous Scuderia thus far in 2025.

Both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton took off-track excursions during the first practice session, while matters grew even more frustrating in the second.

“These damn brakes, mate,” Hamilton lamented. “These brakes are a problem.”

Meanwhile, Charles Leclerc chimed in on his own radio to add, “The brakes in the mode warm-up are horrendous. Mate… it is not braking.”

While brake issues have been regularly plaguing Ferrari this season, Hamilton admitted that Friday’s problems are new.

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“P1 was good,” Hamilton told media, referring to the first practice session.

“I was really, really happy with the car in P1. It felt like we had made a step forward, and was feeling really positive.

And then it all went wrong.

“I’ve literally changed two of the tiniest things that shouldn’t have had barely any effect at all,” he said.

“The smallest change we’ve probably done this year, and we had some brake issues that then made a massive difference.

“And so that was then a fight with that that’s been a problem. That’s been quite a big issue all year, actually.

“So I had never experienced that before; that’s a new thing for me this year.”

Hamilton denied that this was a matter of getting used to Brembo brakes — which Ferrari use — compared to Carbon Industrie brakes, which he’d been so familiar with at Mercedes.

“It’s not the transition,” he said. “It’s the performance.”

Come qualifying and race day, Hamilton added, “It’s a lottery. We will roll the dice; you put one [brake] on and it works, you put another on and it doesn’t. We’ll see.

“So I hope tomorrow we figure something out.”

Teammate Charles Leclerc was also keeping his qualifying and race day expectations quite realistic.

“Our weak point at the moment is the Qualifying pace and we still need to work on that,” Leclerc said.

“To go and take pole, honestly I don’t think we’ve got it in the car for now but the race pace was strong so that’s positive.

“But [it’s] also a track where overtaking is very difficult, so we’ve got to focus on our qualifying pace, that’s where we are putting all our effort into.”

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