Lewis Hamilton has said that his Ferrari felt “terrible” after post-sprint win setup changes at the Chinese Grand Prix and admits the team has work to do to catch its rivals.
Hamilton, laid down a significant marker early on in the Shanghai weekend by following up a sprint qualifying pole with an impressive sprint win, but struggled afterwards — qualifying fifth in Sunday’s Grand Prix, which he finished sixth on the track before both he and teammate Charles Leclerc were disqualified for technical infringements.
While media activities had wrapped up long before the punishments were revealed, Hamilton did manage to detail his post-sprint struggles over the weekend.
“Balance-wise, from the sprint race we made these changes and the car was terrible after that,” he said. “So I really struggled from then on.
“I think it’s good learnings and hopefully won’t do that again as I continue to learn this car.”
Despite Hamilton’s sprint points, Ferrari has struggled on both Sundays so far this season and there is already a gap opening up between F1’s most successful constructor and its rivals.
“The window is quite narrow, but there is some performance there, like what we had in the sprint,” Hamilton added. “We’re always trying to move forwards, it didn’t end up being the greatest but it is what it is.
“We can see where we are performance wise, we clearly have to improve our pace as the guys ahead are pretty quick. We have some work to do to close the gap.”
McLaren, after back-to-back victories, leads the constructors’ championship while Lando Norris tops the drivers’ standings. F1 next heads to Suzuka for the Japanese GP on April 4-6.
Source: espn.com