Source: REUTERS/Rula Rouhana
[Saba Sports News] When Lewis Hamilton mentioned in an interview before the Bahrain Grand Prix that his SF-25 car had a “performance deficit,” the technical route differences within the Ferrari team finally came to light. The seven-time world champion revealed to the media that during the Japanese Grand Prix, he and Charles Leclerc used completely different tuning schemes – Leclerc continued the settings of the first two stations, while Hamilton took a risk and tried a new configuration. As a result, Hamilton lost by 0.3 seconds in the qualifying. Internal data shows that Hamilton’s car was disqualified at the Chinese Grand Prix due to excessive wear of the bottom plate, exposing the predicament of Ferrari having to lower the car’s height in pursuit of downforce. While Leclerc’s conservative settings can stably enter Q3, they have never been able to challenge the Red Bull and McLaren teams. Hamilton’s remarks imply that there are fundamental differences in the technical concepts between the two. What’s more serious is that after three races, Ferrari has already fallen behind McLaren by 76 points, a number that is 62 points more than the gap for the entire year last year.