Lewis Hamilton has firmly rejected claims that he is losing faith in Ferrari despite a challenging start to his debut season with the team, as Charles Leclerc also explained his point of view at the F1 Japanese GP media day.
Even though he secured his first race win with the team during the Sprint in China, the next day was a complete disaster. Instead of taking home points for a 6th-place finish, Hamilton got disqualified for technical infringement.
Hamilton shares his thoughts after the DSQ
“I saw someone sent me something of whether or not I’m losing faith in the team, which is completely rubbish,” Hamilton stated. “I have absolute 100 per cent faith in this team.”
The seven-time world champion, who made the high-profile switch to the Scuderia at the start of the year, has endured a mixed beginning to his Ferrari career. While his Sprint victory in China was an early highlight, it was quickly overshadowed by a disastrous outcome in the Grand Prix, where both Ferrari drivers were disqualified for separate technical infringements.
Hamilton, in particular, was penalised for excessive plank wear, losing the eight points he had secured with a sixth-place finish.
Despite the setback, the 40-year-old remains optimistic, citing the team’s resilience and ability to learn from mistakes in his print media session.
“I didn’t feel like any frustration or anything afterwards. It is what it is.
“Of course, we’ve gone through everything. I was at the factory on Wednesday. [There are] lots of learnings. We take the highs and lows together as a team.”
Leclerc on a “difficult first part” of the season
His teammate, Charles Leclerc, also shared his thoughts on Ferrari’s double disqualification. He admitted it was a painful blow but expressed confidence in the team’s ability to move forward.
“I’m confident because whenever you make mistakes, you learn from them, especially when they cost that much,” said Leclerc. “Everybody plays with the limit and tries to be as close as possible to it. But to have both cars underneath it was a big pain. We didn’t need that.”
The Monegasque driver acknowledged the team’s struggles in the opening rounds, noting that the Ferrari pace had not been as strong as expected.
“It’s been a very difficult first part of the season. The first two races were difficult, the pace was not where we expected it to be, and to lose even more points than we already did with that, it hurts the team a lot.”
Leclerc also addressed his performance in China, where he unexpectedly found a strong race pace despite a broken front wing.
“I can assure you it’s never a good thing to have a broken front wing, so it’s not something I want to target for the rest of the year,” Leclerc said with a hint of humour. “There were some interesting things we looked at to understand where the performance was coming from. I believe the performance was really strong in terms of race pace.”
Did Hamilton get warned in China?
Returning to Hamilton, the Briton emphasised that he had realistic expectations about his transition to Ferrari and was never under the illusion that immediate success would come easily.
“I think there was obviously a huge amount of hype at the beginning of the year, and I don’t know if anyone was expecting us to be winning from race one and winning a championship in our first year. That wasn’t my expectation.
“I know that I’m coming into a new culture, a new team, and it’s going to take time. I’ve spent the past two months just observing how the team works in comparison to the other two teams that I’ve worked at. And through this past week, I’ve been able to make notes and create pointers of areas that I feel that we can improve on, and that will continue through the year as we learn more and more about each other.”
Reflecting on the Chinese Grand Prix, Hamilton also addressed whether he had any indication that his car’s plank wear might lead to an issue.
“In a race, you drive around. You drive away from the bumps. So I was avoiding all the bumps in certain areas,” he explained. “Like exit turn 13, for example. And I couldn’t feel the car. It wasn’t bottoming. It wasn’t bouncing or anything like that.”
The Ferrari driver revealed that he had not been alerted to any potential problems during the race.
“So no, it was not made aware in that respect. We knew it was a one-stop race. And so, yeah, I ended up doing two. I generally like to do two stops at that track. And also, I’ve not driven that tyre. I didn’t know how far it would go. That’s where pretty much all the other drivers around me have driven that tyre and knew how far it would go.”
With lessons learned from China, both Hamilton and Ferrari will be looking to bounce back in at the F1 Japanese GP, determined to put early-season setbacks behind them.
