{"id":32550,"date":"2025-04-07T08:44:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T12:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=32550"},"modified":"2025-04-07T08:44:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T12:44:02","slug":"hamilton-reveals-ferrari-have-uncovered-issue-with-his-sf-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/04\/07\/hamilton-reveals-ferrari-have-uncovered-issue-with-his-sf-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton reveals Ferrari have uncovered issue with his SF-25"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton<\/a> and Ferrari had a relatively understated weekend in Japan, both in terms of performance and end result. The SF-25 is arguably the fourth-fastest car to start 2025, a long way short of pre-season expectations.<\/p>\n

In terms of the inter-team rivalry between Hamilton and Leclerc, it is the Monegasque who is ahead in the standings.<\/p>\n

Both drivers have made similar comments about Ferrari’s 2025 challenger, which is proving tricky to optimise.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media in Japan, however, Hamilton reveals there is another issue he’s dealt with since round one.<\/p>\n

Hamilton reveals problem with his SF-25<\/h2>\n

Somewhat surprisingly, the blockbuster partnership between Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari hasn’t dominated headlines in 2025.<\/p>\n

With Ferrari evenly matched with McLaren last year, the expectation was that Leclerc and the 7-time Champion could fight for the title.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Fred Vasseur’s team, their latest challenger is lacking relative to the papaya squad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Ferrari team principal has admitted their deficit is around three tenths, which they will have to claw back.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Hamilton says there’s been an issue with one of his components this season:<\/p>\n

“I think I did the best I could today,”<\/em> he told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

“I’m generally lacking performance to all the cars that are ahead of me.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Particularly, Mercedes, McLaren<\/a> and obviously the Red Bull.<\/em><\/p>\n

“We’ve found something on the car that’s been underperforming for the last three races.<\/em><\/p>\n

“So I’m really hoping when that’s fixed, I’ll start getting a bit better results.<\/em><\/p>\n

“But yeah I’m losing just over a tenth per lap, with this issue we have.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ferrari reliant on upgrade package<\/h4>\n

The good news for Ferrari is that one effective set of updates could transform their season.<\/p>\n

As Red Bull and Max Verstappen<\/a> have demonstrated for several months, McLaren can be forced into errors when put under pressure.<\/p>\n

Should the Italian outfit unlock a few tenths per lap, they could put themselves in contention for victories.<\/p>\n

Then again, it must be said that Ferrari have fallen short of targets during the winter break.<\/p>\n

Whilst making a recovery is possible, the incoming 2026 regulations mean the window of opportunity is smaller than most years.<\/p>\n

A new floor will debut on the SF-25 this weekend<\/a>, which will be crucial for their fortunes this season.<\/p>\n

Not only will their next upgrades matter in terms of performance, but it will also demonstrate whether their long-term trajectory for 2025 is promising or not.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Returning to Lewis Hamilton, he is hopeful Ferrari can rectify the problem on his car:<\/p>\n

“I’m hoping in the next races it’s fixed [the underperforming component].<\/em><\/p>\n

“Otherwise, qualifying clearly is really important. <\/em>I’m not extracting the best of the tyres, so that’s something to work on.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I think it’s just they [Ferrari] are aware of it [the issue], but they don’t know why. <\/em><\/p>\n

“As I said, when the new component comes, hopefully it will be gone and it will be the same across cars.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Considering that, I’m relatively happy with the race pace I did have – given what I had.<\/em><\/p>\n

“But otherwise, good performance from the team. Myself and Riccardo [Adami, race engineer] I think did a really good job.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The engineers and mechanics did a really good job – so onwards and upwards.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari had a relatively understated weekend in Japan, both in terms of performance and end result. The SF-25 is arguably the fourth-fastest car to start 2025, a long way short of pre-season expectations. In terms of the inter-team rivalry between Hamilton and Leclerc, it is the Monegasque who is ahead in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":32554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2452,84,76,2481],"class_list":["post-32550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-ferrari","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-sf-25"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32555,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32550\/revisions\/32555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}