Lewis Hamilton has revealed an issue with his Ferrari car that needs resolving after finishing in seventh place at the 2025 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix.
The British driver tried the alternative strategy at Suzuka as he fitted the hard tyres at the start – the only one to do so in the top 10.
He quickly got past Isack Hadjar in the Racing Bulls car, however, he was unable to make any further progress in the race as he pitted before the Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who extended his medium tyre stint.
Unable to keep up with the rookie, he finished behind his Silver Arrows successor for his best result on a Sunday for the Italian squad.
But it was still another frustrating race weekend for Ferrari, as the team lacked pace in comparison to its rivals – McLaren, Mercedes and Max Verstappen in the Red Bull.
Despite the double disqualification, China has been its only glimmer of hope so far in the opening races as Hamilton took his first victory for Ferrari in the Sprint Race.
Yet it appears a problem with the car has hindered its performance, as revealed by the seven-time World Champion when asked for his thoughts on the Grand Prix.
“I think I did the best I could today,” he told Sky Sports F1.
“I’m generally lacking performance compared to all the cars that are up ahead of me, particularly Mercedes, McLaren and obviously the Red Bull.
“We found something on the car that’s been underperforming for the last three races, so I’m really hoping when that’s fixed, I’ll start getting better results.
“But yeah, I’m losing just over a tenth per lap with this issue we have.
“So I’m hoping in the next race it’s fixed.”
Hamilton: Ferrari ‘aware’ of issue but unclear on the cause
On the other side of the garage, Charles Leclerc executed the absolute maximum from his SF-25 by finishing ahead of both of the Mercedes drivers in fourth place.
But the Scuderia still has a mountain to climb if it wishes to fight for wins at the front of the pack.
Hamilton hopes Ferrari will be able to find the underlying issue with the car soon, as he revealed the team is searching for answers when asked if he believed a solution could be found.
“I think it’s just they’re aware of it and they don’t know what’s caused it, they don’t know why,” Hamilton explained.
“And so, as I said, when the new component comes, hopefully it’ll be gone and it’ll be the same across cars.”
The importance of qualifying was highlighted by the fact that eight of the top ten finishers completed the race from the same grid positions they started the Grand Prix from.
Therefore, making any significant progress in the race proved to be tough, and Hamitlon was equally pleased to finish seventh considering the issues he suffered with his car.
He added: “I’m relatively happy with the race pace that I did have, given what I had.
“But otherwise, good performance from the team.
“I think myself and Riccardo [Adami] did a really good job, and the engineers and mechanics all did a really great job.”
READ MORE – Lewis Hamilton concedes Ferrari ‘running higher than we would like’ with SF-25 in Japan
