Lewis Hamilton had claimed his first victory as a Ferrari driver in Saturday’s sprint race but came back down to earth in qualifying as both he and teammate Charles Leclerc struggled
Lewis Hamilton came back down to earth in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix after winning the sprint race with his new team Ferrari.
Hamilton had secured his first pole position for Ferrari in just the second race weekend of the 2025 season, before going on to claim a dominant win in the shortened race format.
But his and Ferrari’s form didn’t carry over to Saturday morning’s qualifying session. The pair of Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc will start Sunday’s race from fifth and sixth respectively after they struggled for pace in their final laps of the session.
Instead McLaren’s Oscar Piastri claimed pole ahead of Brits George Russell and Lando Norris, with reigning world champion Max Verstappen in fourth.
Speaking after qualifying, Hamilton made it clear that the car hadn’t performed the way the team had hoped after their initial successes this weekend.
He said: “We started really optimistic but we made a couple of changes and it really put the car on a knife edge. The wind picked up a bit as well, so the car was trickier to drive and harder to put laps together.
“You want a car that’s balanced. At the moment from one corner to the next, the car has a different balance.
“We made the change then all of a sudden in the high-speed it was overbalanced, so you want a car you can rely on and when you attack the corners, you know it will stay with you rather than lock-up or go into oversteer. When it’s unpredictable you have no hope.”
Over the team radio, Hamilton also described qualifying as ‘tough’.
He said: “That was a tough one. Let’s keep pushing, long race tomorrow.”
His new race engineer Riccardo Adami replied: “Yes indeed. We’ll go flat out for tomorrow.”
Fans on social media were quick to wonder where Ferrari’s pace had gone. One wrote: “What the heck happened to Ferrari’s pace? I’m so baffled but we move on anyway Lewis starts P5, good start with the right strategy hopefully a podium.”
Another added: “Lewis Hamilton won the sprint race but struggled with pace for qualifying. Who fiddled with the car, please?”
Speaking after his sprint victory, Hamilton previously praised the car. He said: “I woke up feeling great today. The first race was difficult and I really do feel a lot of people underestimated the steep climb it is to get into a new team, with communication and understanding and a whole lot of things.
“The amount of people I heard yapping away maybe because they haven’t done it and don’t have the experience.
“I came here and the engineers and mechanics have done a great job to fine-tune the car and it felt great today. There is so much grip on this new tarmac but I think everyone struggled.”