Lewis Hamilton confirmed that the Ferrari has a “problem” with the 2025 F1 vehicle.
The seven-time world champions only qualified eighth place, finishing in a modest 7th place at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Apart from Hamilton’s pole and victory in the China Sprint race, Ferrari’s 2025 season was a difficult and overwhelming start.
Following Sunday’s Grand Prix at Suzuka, Hamilton revealed that his car had issues with poor performance “in the last three races.”
“I did everything I could today. I generally had a lack of performance compared to the cars in front of me, especially the Mercedes, McLaren and clearly the Red Bull,” Hamilton said.
“We have found some poorly performed in the last three races on the car, so we really hope that when it was fixed will give us a better result.
“We’ve lost more than the first lap to an issue we’re having, and we hope that in the next race it’s fixed.
“If not, qualifications are obviously very important. I’m not extracting the best from the tires, so that’s something to work on.”
Asked if he was certain that Ferrari could solve the problem, Hamilton replied. “They know that. They don’t know what is causing or why, so when a new component comes it will go away and it’s the same on both cars.
“I was given what I had, given me what I had, if not, a good performance from the team. The engineers and mechanics all did a good job.”
Does Ferrari have fundamental problems with their cars?
Ferrari is far from pace in 2025
Ferrari suffered from ride height issues in the opening three races of the season, and Hamilton was disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix after he found out his planks had excessive wear.
Paddock’s whispers suggest that Ferrari won’t drive the car hard on high fuel, so they have to lift it higher than both drivers.
Ferrari has not yet addressed the issue publicly.
“There are some rumors in the paddock that there is a fundamental problem with the rear of this car,” said SkySports F1 presenter Simon Razenby.
“They’re full around at the moment, but is it an individual issue if they can get around it or not, or at some point, “We won’t be able to fix it and keep up with Red Bull and McLaren. We’ll have to switch focus to 2026.”
The 1997 World Champion and Sky Pandit Jacques Villeneuve said:
“He said something was going on. No one has any clue why it’s going on, but if there’s nothing new that’s built up, then we shouldn’t leave.
“So it sounds like a stiffness issue somewhere. Something is going on and you don’t know which is creating the problem, so it looks like you’re making something entirely new.”
Meanwhile, Naomi Schiff added: