Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton encounters 'serious' problem as disqualification risk emerges

Lewis Hamilton suffered a dismal Ferrari debut

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Wednesday 19 March 2025 19:56

Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari debut was plagued by 'disqualification concerns', leading to the Formula 1 team's poor performance, according to reports in Italian media.

Hamilton's grand prix debut with the Maranello outfit in Australia saw him finish the race down in 10th position, just picking up a single point in a performance that mirrored much of his 2024 season, but now potential reasons have been given for that disappointing afternoon.

Team-mate Charles Leclerc could also only finish eighth himself, as Ferrari clearly struggled all weekend-long with performance issues in comparison to McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull.

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Ferrari are hoping to challenge for their first title of any kind since 2008, with Hamilton moving to the most successful team in F1 history in the hopes of securing a record-breaking eighth world championship.

Ferrari's F1 struggles revealed

Now, it has been revealed by Motorsport Italia that Ferrari's level of performance may have been down to errors in the simulator prior to the Australian GP weekend.

They report that the setup that was identified by the team in their simulator was incorrect, and ran too close to the ground once the cars were on the track in Melbourne.

While teams try and run as low to the ground as possible in the ground effect era, there are rules on how much the car can scrape along the ground, with Leclerc and Hamilton both being disqualified from the 2023 US GP for excessive wear on their skid blocks.

With this in mind, the above publication suggests that Ferrari therefore changed their car setup for the weekend to avoid disqualification, hampering their performance, thus resulting in the slow race pace compared to their rivals.

These reports also suggest that it is being seen as a 'serious problem' for Ferrari with regards to the design of their new SF-25.