Lewis Hamilton completed his third Grand Prix with his Scuderia Ferrari team led by Fred Vasseur on Sunday in Suzuka for the Japanese GP. The British driver finished P7 behind teammate Charles Leclerc, who finished P4. Hamilton is still working to get more comfortable in his new team, feeling like there is a large gap in performance between him and his teammate due to factors outside his control.
Hamilton was “at maximum” during the Japanese GP
Lewis Hamilton finished behind the two Mercedes cars, both McLarens, his own teammate, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Ferrari opted to start the British driver on hard compound tyres despite the majority of the grid starting on medium compound tyres.
In an interview with the print media after Sunday’s race, Hamilton reflected on this tyre strategy decision.
“In the end, there wasn’t a safety car, so it didn’t make much difference. I think the medium was definitely better for the start of the race, especially in these cool conditions.”
Hamilton’s race strategy would have benefited greatly from a safety car. He was chasing down Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli for the majority of the first stint after overtaking Isack Hadjar for P7. The British driver was unable to break into the DRS range of the Mercedes while on the hard compound tyre but later found more success on the medium tyre, albeit nothing came from it.
The 7-time World Champion shared that he was extracting everything he could from the car, citing also a technical issue in play throughout the weekend.
“I was at maximum today. I didn’t have anything else in the car with underperformance happening at the rear of the car this weekend.”
Progress with the car and Ferrari as a whole
As Hamilton completes another race weekend with Ferrari, the two parties are becoming increasingly comfortable with each other. After 12 years of working with former race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, Hamilton now has to acclimate to his new race engineer, Ricciardo Adami. Hamilton says that their developing partnership has been working well, and their communication has improved this weekend.
“It’s been great. I’ve got a really great relationship with Ricciardo. He’s doing a fantastic job, as are the rest of the guys. I think this was a much calmer time for us as we’re getting to know each other more.”
In his three races at Ferrari so far, there has been a notable gap in performance between Hamilton and Leclerc. Hamilton recognizes this and is determined to do his part to close this gap.
“I’m really hoping in the next race we’ll see hopefully some positive changes. Through the first three races, there’s been a bit of a deficit between both sides of the garage, on my side something underperforming.”
Leclerc outqualified Hamilton by three-tenths of a second on Saturday of the Japanese GP, starting P4 to Hamilton’s P8. The Monegasque driver was able to stay in front of both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in Sunday’s Japanese GP to finish in P4.
Hamilton commented on his suboptimal qualifying result, stating that even if the session had gone better, he would not have had the race pace to keep the top teams behind him.
“Obviously, qualifying position is key; I think I probably would have been overtaken by McLarens and Mercedes if I was any further ahead. But yeah, I‘m hoping in the next race we somehow get a bit closer.”
The gap from Ferrari to fellow front-running teams
The Prancing Horses were projected to be top contenders coming into the season with their remarkable driver lineup. However, Ferrari has had a tough start to their 2025 campaign thus far. Finishing P8 and P10 in Melbourne and a double disqualification in Shanghai has put pressure on the team to turn their fortunes around.
Hamilton opened up about where the Ferraris stand in comparison to the top teams of McLaren and Mercedes after the Japanese GP. After almost undercutting Kimi Antonelli, the Italian drove off in the final 20 laps on the hard tyre.
“I think we’re probably the fourth fastest clearly at the moment, and I think we are a little bit off the other guys in terms of performance, downforce level-wise. So we’ve got some work to do to close the gap.
“I mean, Mercedes are faster than us; that’s why you saw them so close to Charles. They just have more pace than us at the moment. When I was behind him, he was just so much quicker through certain parts of the circuit I couldn’t follow.”
Upgrades, Bahrain, and a comment from Fred Vasseur
The Scuderia will have to develop the car through upgrades going forward in the season in order to be able to match or surpass the pace of the front-running teams. Hamilton recognizes that bringing the right upgrade following the Japanese GP could be enough to change a team’s fortune.
“We will slowly progress the car. It’ll be interesting to see when people get upgrades over the season. We’ve got a lot of work to be able to close the gap to the top cars, the top guys. They’ve probably got three or four-tenths on us, so we’ve got a lot of work to bring upgrades for them.”
When the British driver was asked if Ferrari is bringing upgrades into the Bahrain GP next weekend, he simply responded, “I don’t know.”
Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur commented on Hamilton’s qualms with the set-up of the car and his struggle for pace, as a result, in a print media session on Sunday after the Japanese GP.
“Balance and set-up are to their choice; we are still exploring the new car, and we are taking different directions to suit the drivers.”
Round four of the 2025 F1 World Championship takes place next weekend in Bahrain. This track was the site of this year’s pre-season testing. This means that teams have experience with this track with their 2025 car and driver lineup. Despite three suboptimal Grand Prix outings so far for Lewis Hamilton, Fred Vasseur is confident that the upcoming Bahrain GP.
“I think Bahrain will be a different picture because we did three days in Bahrain last month, and we are more in control.”
