Emerging victorious in the Chinese Grand Prix Sprint, Lewis Hamilton has shared insights into the minor modifications made to the SF-25 setup. According to Hamilton, these seemingly insignificant alterations pushed the car to a precarious balance, akin to a “knife edge,” for the qualifying round. He is set to begin at P5 for the primary race at the Chinese Grand Prix.
In a remarkable show of skill and strategy, Hamilton secured pole position and an unassailable triumph in the 19-lap Sprint on Saturday. However, despite this victory, he and his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc will occupy the third row for Sunday’s main event.
Post-Sprint, the parc fermé, a secure area where cars are parked post-race, reopens to accommodate any required setup modifications by the teams and drivers. This is crucial before the Grand Prix qualifying, after which the cars’ setups are locked for the rest of the weekend.
Like most drivers, Hamilton chose to fine-tune his car, leveraging the newly gathered data and adjusting to the increased minimum tyre pressure requirement by Pirelli, the tyre supplier. These minor alterations between the Sprint and qualifying led to balance changes in his SF-25 on a turn-by-turn basis.
Hamilton, a seven-time World Champion, expressed his initial optimism to Sky F1. However, he admitted that the minor tweaks made to the car moved it to a precarious balance. “We started really optimistic, naturally,” he said. “But then we made just a couple of small changes, tweaks to the car, and it really put the car on a knife edge.”
Hamilton also noted the impact of the wind, which made the car more challenging to drive and the laps harder to string together. When asked about any specific car traits that could assist him further, he emphasized the need for balance. He stated, “No one particular thing — you want a car that’s balanced.”
Hamilton explained that the car’s balance was varying from one corner to the next, which is not ideal. Drivers want a car with consistent balance. After the changes, the car was overbalanced at high speed, making it unreliable. He stressed that drivers need to trust their cars when attacking corners. An unpredictable car, he pointed out, gives the driver “no hope.”
In the qualifying round, Hamilton managed to outpace his team-mate Leclerc, who will be starting one spot behind at P6, having clocked a lap time that was 0.094s slower than Hamilton’s.
