It was yet another disappointing afternoon for Lewis Hamilton, whose start to life at Ferrari has been difficult with very few moments of joy. Far away from the podium places, Hamilton had to settle for a P7 finish in Suzuka today, as he managed to make up just one place.
For Ferrari, it was an improvement from China two weeks ago, where they suffered a double disqualification. Hamilton’s six points and teammate Charles Leclerc‘s 12 points, thanks to the Monegasque’s fourth-place finish, took the team to P4 in the Constructors’ standings, 16 points ahead of Williams. Still, it’s far away from where they would want to be.
As things stand, the performance issues for the Maranello-based outfit are showing no signs of improvement, with experts even claiming that they are clueless. “They know they are in trouble and do not know how to get better,” 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve said after qualifying.
Hamilton’s comments after the Japanese GP have now further proved the Canadian former driver’s point.
“We found something on the car that’s been underperforming for the last three races, so I’m really hoping when that’s fixed, I’ll start getting a bit better results,” the seven-time world champ said.
He further revealed that the issues have cost him over a tenth-of-a-second per lap. It’s affecting him in qualifying, which in turn has proved costly in the race.
Talking about what the problem exactly is, Hamilton added, “I think it’s just they’re aware of it and they don’t know what’s [causing], they don’t know why and so as I said when a new component comes hopefully it’ll be gone and it’ll be the same across cars.”
| Sir Lewis Hamilton shares that Ferrari have been struggling with a specific issue thats affecting performance:
“We found something on the car that’s been underperforming for the last three races, so I’m really hoping when that’s fixed I’ll start getting a bit better… pic.twitter.com/CZ5PbEZrKV
— sim (@simsgazette) April 6, 2025
Ferrari won’t have much time to regroup, as they head to Bahrain for the second race of the season’s first triple-header. But it’s not just their qualifying pace that’s a concern. Radio communication has been a recurring issue this season, and Suzuka was yet another example of that ongoing struggle.
Hearing Hamilton and Leclerc’s tense exchanges with their respective race engineers raised several eyebrows. Damon Hill, 1996 world champion, took to X (formerly Twitter) to write, “Bl***y hell. Ferrari radio coms! It’s like married couples!”
Bloody hell. Ferrari radio coms! Its like married couples! #f1
— Damon Hill (@HillF1) April 6, 2025
It’s an issue the team must prioritize because without seamless communication between drivers and engineers, Ferrari risks repeating the strategic blunders that once made them the joke of the paddock.
The mysterious mechanical issues plaguing the SF-25 may not be resolved over the final two races of this triple-header—Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. But the communication problems between drivers and race engineers are well within Ferrari’s control, and it’s an area they can and must improve.
