Lewis Hamilton dwell into things he has had to do to adjust at Ferrari, as Charles Leclerc reflects on maximum he could do in F1 Bahrain GP.
It wasn’t the Saturday that Hamilton had hoped for in F1 Bahrain GP after finishing just eighth in the order. For the first time, the Brit looked visibly upset in his short time at Ferrari, as he didn’t understand what went wrong, especially when teammate Leclerc was third (which got converted to second).
He spent time on his own in the hotel to recharge for Sunday. While there was some luck involved, but Hamilton gained good amount in the grand prix to end up fifth. The pit stop calls were on point and he could really fight other cars, as he himself alluded to after the grand prix.
Pressing on to understand more, Hamilton reflected on how tough it has been to adjust driving the Ferrari and soak in its system, like using engine braking that he has never used at Mercedes. The Brit revealed that he is now adjusting to the car rather than asking for changes to suit his style.
Team boss Frederic Vasseur affirmed that Hamilton can’t forget the 12 years of driving one car in a matter of two months, especially when the system is different and complex to learn at the first go. The Frenchman was happy that the Brit showed his emotions on Saturday as he did.
He was also pleased with the recovery drive as Ferrari continues to work with Hamilton to get things right. With Leclerc, they didn’t play with the strategy to switch to the soft compound, as they felt they had too many laps to get the tyres to work. They admit that the soft compound worked better.
Leclerc didn’t think their strategy was wrong in any way, citing that their loss of podium was down to performance and not strategy. He felt that fourth was maximum he could have achieved irrespective, since the pace McLaren had and also George Russell in the Mercedes.
Race –
Hamilton: “A much more positive day. The middle stint I felt really aligned with the car. The balance finally was in a spot, and my driving style seemed to be working in that moment. And so I learned a lot from today, and this weekend actually. A lot, probably more than all the other weekends. [After qualifying] I just went to my hotel to sort it out, had the discussion with myself. And I had a really good start today, and I knew that the next day would be a new day. So I just started or tried to start more positive as I said. Obviously qualifying isn’t good enough. But I think if I get the car where it was, for example, in that middle stint, and I start delivering qualifying, you could see I can still race. So if I fix that, then there should be better weekends.”
Leclerc: “I don’t know, but, I just think we were just not fast enough. If we put it in different ways, we pushed a little on the first stint and the second stint was faster but just because of degradation. And then when we found ourselves in the same boat as everyone at the end, we were just struggling for pace just like at the beginning of the race, compared to the others. So I think the pace was just missing. Then obviously, when the pace is missing, whatever strategy you do, you’re always on the wrong side of things. We are just not fast enough.”
Adjusting driving style, systems –
Hamilton: “The key is to try and get back to it every weekend. It’s clear that the car really does require a different driving style, and I think I’m slowly adjusting to that. And also set-up. I’ve been bit all over the place, a long way from Charles the past two weekends, and then slowly migrating towards him. So I think if I start the weekend in a more convenient spot and apply the techniques that I learned this weekend, hopefully I can improve from there. It just feels so alien, it really does feel so alien. I think we all get stuck in our ways, and I’ve been very stuck, ‘I need to keep driving the way I’m driving to make the car come to me.’ But it’s not working. So I am adjusting myself now to the car, and also with the tools, it drives so much different with all the ECU.
“The controls that we have, you have to use them a lot different to the past. Just one example is I never used engine braking before, for the past 12 years. We never use engine braking. Well, here we use a lot of engine braking to turn the car. They’re much different brakes. Brakes are so much different to what I had in the past, round it a little bit more. Like in the last stint, I had to use the rears to turn the car, and then other times you have to put all the weight on the front. It’s probably a bigger balance window than I’m used to.”
Vasseur: “I understand the frustration of [Saturday] evening because if you have a look from FP1 to Q2, he was a tenth, plus or minus with Charles. Then you arrive into Q3 and the first lap is deleted and on the second one, he made a mistake and then you pay the price because the grid is not made up of the average, but on the last lap. For sure there is a bit of frustration for him, but also for us. He had a very strong recovery, had a solid race and came back in P5. The race time compared to the top two or three is almost similar and that means for me, it was okay, and he was very strong and consistent. But with the field we have now, if you miss two or three-tenths in qualifying because you made a mistake, you will lose six or seven positions.
“I was not expecting something different. After [the sprint race] in China, we were speaking about the prize-giving ceremony, and after the race in China, it was a total disaster. In terms of management, we have to take it easy, to calm down as the issue is that, probably for us, the ups are a bit higher and the downs are a bit lower. It means that if we want to keep a consistent approach, which we did very well in the last two years, we have to stay calm to improve hundredths of seconds by hundredths of seconds. But I am convinced that we will do the same job as we did the last two years.”
Mercedes to Ferrari difference –
Hamilton: “It’s a much different car, but even worse qualifying this year than I had last year. So I just keep trying. I’ll get there eventually. It is a completely different team. Mercedes is an amazing team, but the energy in this team is fantastic. And the guys are pushing really hard the pitstops fantastic. They’ve trained so hard to get the pit stops that they’re doing. And I’m adjusting to their pit stops as well. And I think we’ve had really fast pit stops, particularly today as well. And strategy, we’re slowly getting on top of things. I think today it will be interesting to see what they say afterwards, with whether we would have used a different tyre at any point in the race. But the middle stint was great, and we’ve got some improvements to make to the car. But I’m sure we can do it.”
Vasseur: “You won’t replace 12 years of collaboration in two weeks or in two races. That means that for sure we need to improve, but I think this is true for everybody in the team, in the paddock, that we have the DNA for our sport is to try to do a better job and I think it’s good to have Lewis with this mindset to say, ‘OK, I have to improve also myself and to adapt myself to the car.’ We will work on the car to adapt the car to Lewis, but he also has to do a step. And I think this, between us, is done in a positive way and a very constructive way. Now the fact that he was a bit down, I like it. Because if the guy is coming back in P10 and he says it’s a shame, for sure he was disappointed because he was much better [than that] all the weekend so far.
“Now we know that it’s happened like this in F1 today that it was not the case three, four years ago that when you have five tenths between the team because you do a mistake you lose one position, one row. Today you lose five tenths, you can lose six or seven positions. I think Charles was on the first row, but it was three or four hundredths slower, he would have been P6. “It’s always relative that we have to stay calm in term of judgement of the performance because sometimes for almost nothing you can change a good weekend in a very poor one and vice versa. I appreciated the reaction of Lewis. I did my best to push him a little bit. Today he was in a very good shape and a very strong shape, but let’s start from there next week and I hope to do my best.“
Strategy call –
Leclerc: “I felt like it [one-stop] was at one point but we did the right thing especially considering the safety car, nobody knew that there would be a safety car in the second part of the race but at the end we did the right thing to go for the two stops. I don’t think it will have changed a lot, maybe a little bit. We were just not fast enough. I was starting to struggle a little bit behind George as well, my tyres were overheating. I think we could have pushed him to go in, which would have been great, but we didn’t manage to do it. It was the right choice considering what we had but when you look at George, he obviously managed to make those soft lasts until the end. I don’t think that this was a possibility for us, but we’ll review that. But I don’t think that was a game-changer.”
Vasseur: “It was the risky, aggressive side of the choice that we had the flexibility at the end, depending on how many laps you extend, to choose for hard or for scrub soft. With the Safety Car, we had no choice, at least from our perspective. I think for Russell also, he considered at one stage that it was mega ambitious to do 24 laps, but in the end it paid off. Probably the track was a bit fuller with more rubber and so. But no, I think the initial strategy was the good one that we paid the price on the first stint to extend a little bit, but then the pace was very strong and it would’ve been a good one, but we can’t complain about the Safety Car, it’s part of the game. Without the Safety Car, we would’ve had the choice between soft and hard, but with the Safety Car, for us, it was not anymore an option because I think at this stage it was 24 laps or I don’t remember. But overall, I think if you have a look at the race, it was a bit chaotic in terms of strategy.
“We have races when 90% of the field is doing exactly the same thing and it was not the case. Because I think even Kimi put the soft before the Safety Car. It means that he was supposed, I think, to do three stops at this stage. But we are still at the early stage of this compound and I think we are all a bit blind, but it’s part of the game and I think McLaren is better so far on this side of the game. [Hard tyre] The worst? Yeah, I would avoid saying this. I would say that the soft was the best. Yeah, but it’s true that it’s very linked to the conditions and the FP2 was a bit hotter with less grip and the delta between compounds is also much smaller than last year. It means that sometimes it’s really on the edge and the best example is that I think [in] the second stint we had all the compounds on track from soft to hard and everybody was trying different options.”
What is needed –
Leclerc: “I think we just need more overall downforce, more grip. I think the balance we are extracting the maximum out of the car at the moment, but there’s just nothing more. I need more grip to go faster around the corner. In qualifying I still feel like we can hide that a little bit by doing [a] few tricks. But then once you are in the race, no grip is no grip, it’s more degradation. So, it’s a snowball effect once you’re in the race. So, it’s a bit trickier in the race.”
Here’s Lewis Hamilton passing cars: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-bahrain-grand-prix-hamilton-muscles-his-way-past-sainz-for-p8.1829302759915943601
Here’s battle between Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-bahrain-grand-prix-hamilton-and-norris-battle-it-out-for-p4-on-the-safety-car-restart.1829307533178580360
Here’s Lando Norris taking on Charles Leclerc: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-bahrain-grand-prix-norris-battles-past-leclerc-around-the-outside-to-take-p3.1829307681792151157
Here’s how F1 Bahrain GP panned out
