Lewis Hamilton confirms worst-kept secret in alarming Ferrari update
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton in a press conference at the Belgian Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton has confirmed that he feels no difference with the Ferrari SF-25 car, even after the arrival of the team’s highly anticipated rear-suspension upgrade.
Ferrari will introduce a new rear suspension at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa in an attempt to rescue its stuttering F1 2025 season.
Lewis Hamilton confirms Ferrari SF-25 feels ‘the same as before’ despite key upgrade
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
It is hoped that this weekend’s SF-25 suspension tweak will finally rectify the car’s persistent ride-height issues and potentially allow Lewis Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc to compete for wins in the second half of the campaign.
Hamilton and Leclerc sampled the new suspension for the first time in a real-world environment during a filming day at the Mugello circuit last week.
Reports in the aftermath claimed that both drivers were in agreement that the upgrade, which is estimated to be worth 0.1 seconds of lap time, made no tangible difference to the car’s handling.
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Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on Thursday at Spa, Hamilton confirmed that the SF-25 felt “the same as before” the upgrade.
Put to him that he tested some new parts at Mugello, he snapped: “We didn’t test.
“It was a photoshoot day, basically, so I did 10 laps – or whatever it is, 14 laps – of filming, which was not a test.”
Asked how the car felt over the course of those laps, he laughed: “The same as before! The same as the week before!”
Having been forced to run the car higher than it was designed for since Hamilton was disqualified for excessive skid-block wear in China in March, it is thought that the upgrade, if successful, will allow Ferrari to experiment with more aggressive setup choices and access more of the SF-25’s underlying potential going forward.
Although both cars are expected to run the new rear suspension at Spa, Hamilton believes it will take some races for Ferrari to fully optimise the new specification.
And he admitted to being surprised by the team’s slow development pace compared to the likes of Red Bull and Mercedes over the course of the F1 2025 season.
Asked if we will finally see what the SF-25 is truly capable of in Belgium, Hamilton said: “No.
“Firstly, we’ll get to test the suspension tomorrow and I’m sure there’s going to be learnings from it.
“We’ll kind of figure out how to fine tune it and to try to extract performance from it.
“On the simulator there’s no difference, but I’m sure across different circuits perhaps there’ll be benefits.
“I think, for me, the positive thing is arriving at the filming day, where you see that new bits are coming, you see that we are getting development.
“Because, in general, we had an upgraded floor in Bahrain and then it was quite some time before we got another upgrade. I think it was Austria.
“And so pace-wise it wasn’t necessarily what I would have thought we would have.
“If you look at some of the other teams, they bring small pieces every single weekend – like Red Bull often do, or Mercedes do, for example – whereas these are more like big chunks along the way.
“I think I was just really happy to see that there clearly is a big push back at the factory.
“There are a lot of changes and then to see the results of those changes takes time.
“So I was just really grateful to see that we got new parts. We’ll try and put them to use this weekend.”
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Asked how challenging it will be for Ferrari to optimise the new suspension on a sprint weekend at Spa, where drivers are limited to a single hour of practice time and there is a risk of rain over the course of the weekend, he added: “Very, very difficult.
“We don’t have a lot of time, so you need to double up, you need to make sure you get as much information from both cars. You need to do the whole session.
“If it’s wet, then that really halves your learning.
“And so in terms of fine-tuning the car, it’s highly unlikely we’re going to fully optimise it during this weekend.
“It’s probably something that we’re optimising over the next next few weekends.”
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