The Chinese GP weekend had begun on a promising note for Ferrari with Lewis Hamilton claiming the sprint pole and race win on Friday and Saturday respectively. However, after qualifying on Saturday afternoon, things changed as the SF-25 once again looked a tad bit slower than the likes of McLaren, Mercedes, and Red Bull.
While Max Verstappen and George Russell were able to get close to the McLaren duo in the top four, Ferrari had to settle for a third-row start. Their troubles were further amplified when Charles Leclerc had contact with Hamilton on the opening lap of the Grand Prix, which caused damage to the Monegasque’s front wing endplate.
After this initial tussle, the Ferrari duo weren’t able to get past Russell in third—despite having a decent race pace—while Verstappen kept them in check from behind. In hindsight, Leclerc felt that Hamilton really outperformed the car during his sprint race win considering their relative pace to Mercedes and Red Bull.
When asked about where Ferrari stand in the pecking order after racing at two different circuits in Melbourne and Shanghai, the #16 driver gave an honest admission that they have work to do to reduce their considerable pace gap with McLaren. “We are not looking good. For now, we are way too far compared to McLaren. Especially in qualifying.”
“I think Lewis outperformed the car on Friday evening in the sprint shootout]. I think the qualifying yesterday (Saturday) is where we stand, we are three-tenths off McLaren,” he told Laura Winter during F1 TV’s post-race show.
Leclerc stated how their bad starting positions cost them a chance to have any say at the front of the field. However, even if he or Hamilton had made any sort of ground, it would have come to nothing as both were disqualified from the race.
Charles: “We are not looking good. For now we are way too far compared to Mclaren. Especially in qualifying.
I think Lewis outperformed the car on Friday evening.
I think the qualifying yesterday (Saturday) is where we stand, we are three tenths off McLaren.
Then in the race… pic.twitter.com/XxXFyHHyBU
— tami. (@Vetteleclerc) March 23, 2025
Nonetheless, the 27-year-old will sit down and debrief with Hamilton and his team to figure out where they are lacking pace relative to McLaren. With 22 races still to go, it’s a long season and the title battle is still wide open.
Can Ferrari improve in time for Leclerc and Hamilton’s title ambitions?
With both Ferrari drivers getting disqualified, the team have dropped to fifth in the standings, behind Williams, with the two teams level on points. The Italian outfit anyways had work to do since their SF-25 has not just had the pace of the frontrunners, but their issues have now been compounded after their disqualification.
That said, with the gap having closed up among the top four teams, Leclerc and Hamilton can still fight back and get in the championship hunt if they have a few good race weekends. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri himself grabbed 32 points this weekend from the sprint and Grand Prix to leap up the standings to P4.
So, it is not impossible for the Ferrari duo to get in the fight if Ferrari can figure out the cause of their pace deficit. Looking at the performance in China, the Italian team seems in a better position than they were during the season-opener in Australia.
Hamilton’s sprint victory could certainly count as a positive and he himself motivated the team post the Grand Prix, stating that they should not ‘give up’ just as yet.
“Guys I know that was tough. Not the result that we wanted but let’s keep pushing. There’s improvements we can make, for sure. Let’s not give up.”
Team principal Frederic Vasseur had also called for achieving sustainable success by not getting carried away by Hamilton’s sprint race success in Shanghai. So far, the Frenchman’s comments have proven to be spot on. He would be keen to get Ferrari back to their race-winning form of last season and provide Hamilton and Leclerc a shot at the title.
