Lewis Hamilton’s Sprint Race win in China sparked a wave of optimism in the Ferrari garage, though it was short-lived. Charles Leclerc managed only P5 in the main race, while Hamilton finished a place behind. Then came the double disqualification.
Hamilton was disqualified because his underbody plank was thinner than the mandated thickness. Meanwhile, Leclerc‘s SF-25 was found to be 1 kg under the minimum stipulated weight.
Disqualifications in F1 are rare. In 75 years of the sport, only 38 such instances have been recorded. That makes Ferrari’s record under team principal Fred Vasseur concerning. While Hamilton has not blamed Vasseur for all the mess, former Ferrari sporting director Cesare Fiorio has lashed out at him.
“Surely, if we have to identify someone responsible, it is the head of Ferrari [Vasseur]. If both cars are found to be non-compliant with the regulations, then it means he did not check and allowed the cars to be out of spec,” Fiorio said in a video shared by the Scuderia Ferrari fans page.
“The disqualification for two different reasons — one underweight, one with excessive floor wear — means they were not checked. The blame can only be his,” added Fiorio, who worked with the likes of Alain Prost in the early 1990s at Ferrari.
The predicament came about possibly due to Vasseur’s emphasis on aggression. “We have to be at the limit on every single item of the car,” Vasseur had said in a 2024 interview with The Race.
“We have to be aggressive, and it’s a challenge to be at the limit of the weight, to be at the limit of the plank, to be at the limit of the cooling, to be at the limit of the fuel. It’s a challenge because in the end, you are taking more and more risk,” he added.
The risk, racing on the hardware’s limits, did not pay off in China. And the disqualification record of rivals like Red Bull and McLaren clearly shows how grave and embarrassing the Italian team’s situation is.
Red Bull’s last disqualification came at the 2014 Australian GP for exceeding the maximum fuel flow rate. McLaren’s most recent was at the 2009 Australian GP, with their last technical infraction resulting in disqualification at the 2000 Brazilian GP.
Since then, neither team has had to face the embarrassment that Ferrari has become all too familiar with. Since Vasseur took charge of the Maranello-based team in 2023, Ferrari has been disqualified thrice.
You wanna know the last time a Red Bull was disqualified from a Grand Prix?
Australia 2014
You wanna know the last time a McLaren was disqualified from a Grand Prix for a technical reason?
Brazil 2000
— Andy (@AndyGraham22) March 25, 2025
Ferrari did not contest their disqualification and instead accepted full responsibility. “We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again,” they said in a statement.
Team Statement pic.twitter.com/BdV24Y3cFV
— Scuderia Ferrari HP (@ScuderiaFerrari) March 23, 2025
The Maranello-based outfit wasn’t the only team to suffer a disqualification in China. Pierre Gasly’s Alpine was also found to be underweight by 1 kg — the same as Leclerc’s car — suggesting that the Sprint Race may have added to the technical variables the teams had to deal with.
Harsh as it may be for Hamilton, Leclerc, and Gasly, the rules are rules. Both teams must now ensure that such errors do not jeopardize their goals for the remainder of the season.
