Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari suspicion gets backing after United States GP

Guenther Steiner shares Lewis Hamilton’s suspicion that Ferrari’s rivals are holding back in practice before finding extra pace in qualifying.

Although Ferrari topped the timesheets in all three practice sessions at the United States Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc and Hamilton were only fourth and fifth fastest in Q3.

Lewis Hamilton questions Ferrari rivals’ qualifying pace after US GP

Hamilton set the pace in Saturday’s final practice to complete Ferrari’s practice-session clean sweep with a 1:34.893. That put him 0.168s ahead of Max Verstappen, while Leclerc was a further 0.066s down.

But come qualifying, Kimi Antonelli was on pole position with a 1:34.035. Leclerc was 0.232s off the pace, and Hamilton 0.044s slower than his teammate.

Told by his race engineer Carlo Santi that he was “P5”, Hamilton replied: “These guys must be turning up for that last Q3 because where did that time go?”

Telemetry analysed by PlanetF1’s data specialist Uros Radovanovic shows that Antonelli’s top speed increased by 4 km/h between FP3 and Q3..

Hamilton told Sky Sports that Ferrari’s rivals were able to take another step when it came to Q3, which highlighted Scuderia’s power deficit not only to Mercedes but also Red Bull.

He said: “It felt like we were right there in the fight and the car was just as good as… we didn’t make any changes; the car didn’t flip upside down in Q3. It was a really good lap.

“Those guys just somehow took another step. I don’t know what it is.

“Ultimately we do lose, I think we are a few tenths off on the straight as we usually are, but a great lap by Kimi and the power deficit to the Red Bull and Mercedes is still significant.”

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Former Haas F1 team principal Steiner says he shares the suspicion that rival teams are turning up the wick in qualifying.

Although he stopped short of saying they have been sandbagging, Steiner has the feeling other teams are hiding their true pace during the practice sessions.

He said on the Chequered Flag podcast: “I think all the last races, the Ferrari engine cars in the free practices seem to be always faster than they ended up to be in qualifying.

“I don’t know if there is a trend there, I didn’t go and study the data of it.

“I’ve got the feeling that the other ones, I wouldn’t call it proper sandbagging, but the other ones hold something back before going to qualifying and Ferrari doesn’t.

“In the race, Ferrari, they were good. Charles finished second, which is a very good result, but it’s like always expectation for Ferrari, it’s always higher based on their free practice results.

“And I get slowly the suspicion, maybe the other ones hold a little bit more back for qualifying than they do. That’s my feeling.”

1996 world champion Damon Hill questioned why Ferrari was showing its pace in the practice sessions.

According to the Briton, the Scuderia should hold back, knowing that it still has lap time in the bag.

“If you create expectation and the team gets excited, and then you know suddenly your hopes are dashed, and everyone and all the fans – as we know with Ferrari, they’re a big part of it – and why show your hand?

“You can always factor in if you adding more fuel, if you’re carrying more fuel, or you turn down the mode of the engine, you can always factor that back in and go, ‘well, listen, we’re looking like we’re eighth or sixth or something, but we know we’ve got half a second in our back pocket, which we’re going to give to the drivers when it comes to qualifying’.

“Why show your hand too early?

“I mean, it seems to me that they always get their hopes dashed. The fact of the matter is, the car in the race was very good, so they got a car that’s kind on the tyres, and it seems to be a good race car.

“When it comes to qualifying, they may be just showing their pace, their ultimate pace, and one-lap format is something that they have to just accept, it’s not going to be there.

“But why show your hand too early? Why not surprise everyone in the race?”

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