There’s a stark distinction in morale between the 2 sides of the Ferrari storage. Charles Leclerc arrives on the sixth spherical of the championship after the sturdy efficiency in Jeddah, which earned the Maranello crew its first podium of the season. The Monegasque, regardless of the challenges plaguing the SF-25, has discovered an alternate resolution to extract the utmost potential from the automobile whereas ready for the updates to make the automobile extra aggressive.
Lewis Hamilton arrives in Miami with a really totally different spirit. Greater than the lackluster outcomes and the few factors collected within the first 5 Grands Prix of the season, the true concern is the failure to discover a compromise setup that may improve Lewis Hamilton’s driving fashion. The weekend in Saudi Arabia was emblematic on this sense, marked by a “efficiency despair.”
Whereas within the first 4 rounds of the season, the Briton confirmed flashes of competitiveness even throughout the similar race, on the ultra-fast Jeddah observe he was soundly crushed by his teammate. The sensation is that the seven-time Formulation 1 world champion has not been capable of finding a stable baseline. A constant platform on which to regulate the SF-25’s setup to swimsuit each the motive force’s wants and the observe traits.
It’s a déjà vu of what occurred at Mercedes when ground-effect automobiles returned. On many weekends, the engineers assigned to Lewis Hamilton’s Silver Arrow operated by way of trial and error as a substitute of growing the setup from a fundamental configuration. Jeddah is a revealing observe on this respect. Lewis Hamilton was the pole-sitter and winner of the inaugural GP version there, after one in all his many all-out battles with Max Verstappen.
The next 12 months, the primary with the present technical laws, he was sensationally eradicated in Q1. On the time, the discuss was of a setup that made the Mercedes W13 undriveable. On a number of events over the previous three years, the British driver has raced in no man’s land. If with a brand new crew he nonetheless faces the identical difficulties he already skilled, it’s truthful to ask some questions—maybe unpopular, however on the similar time believable.
Within the ground-effect period, Lewis Hamilton has by no means pushed the most effective automobile on the grid, besides specifically circumstances, reminiscent of Las Vegas or Spa-Francorchamps final season. In hindsight, his teammates, particularly George Russell and Charles Leclerc, regardless of the poor competitiveness of the automobiles, have proven higher efficiency than the Stevenage-born driver.
4 years into steady laws, we surprise if this era of automobiles is actually incompatible with Lewis’s driving fashion. A discomfort recognized at Brackley, as defined by Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director. The Englishman’s driving fashion has at all times been characterised by heavy braking adopted by sharp cornering, a way often called “V-ing.”
Present automobiles don’t improve this strategy, as they’re heavy and susceptible to understeer. This makes it inconceivable to hold most pace by way of the apex. When the automobile allowed it, he managed to compensate together with his expertise for the problem in optimizing his power. Quite the opposite, with tougher automobiles, the handicap has turn into too disruptive to total efficiency.
On this context, the work of the Maranello engineers and technicians is understandably powerful, as there are numerous components to think about in defining the setup. First, they need to set up a platform suited to the circuit’s traits. On observe, the setup have to be refined to deal with the present problems with the 677 mission, and eventually, compromises have to be discovered to make the automobile extra comfy for Lewis Hamilton to drive.
Within the second Dash Race of the 2025 Formulation 1 season, we’ll see how far the mutual understanding between Ferrari and the British champion has come. Hopefully, the method will likely be fast sufficient to not waste what, at the very least in idea, was speculated to mark the rebirth of the seven-time F1 world champion. We await the following two days on observe to study extra.
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