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Laurence Edmondson
Multiple Authors
Lewis Hamilton has stated that it is “highly unlikely” Ferrari will challenge Mercedes for victory at Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, following his third-place qualification behind Kimi Antonelli and George Russell.
Hamilton initially battled Russell for the lead at the start of Saturday’s sprint race in Shanghai but ultimately yielded to the Mercedes and finished third, trailing his teammate Charles Leclerc at the chequered flag.
After being over 0.8 seconds slower than the leading Mercedes in qualifying at the Australian season opener, Hamilton narrowed that gap to 0.351 seconds in China. Despite this improvement, he still believes his former team holds too much speed to be beaten in Sunday’s race.
“I think it’s highly improbable that we’ll be able to defeat them in the race,” Hamilton declared. “Based on our data, they have a race pace advantage of roughly between 0.4 and 0.6 seconds.”
“Regardless of whether we observed that in the first race, I believe they are simply ahead of us in clear air right now. So, I’m unsure.”
“Perhaps strategy could come into play, or something might happen. Maybe the start will offer an opportunity. I absolutely need to ensure I don’t wear out my tyres trying to either keep up with them or keep someone else behind. So, I need to drive better tomorrow.”
Hamilton leveraged a quick start to contend with Russell for the lead in the sprint race, a feat his teammate Charles Leclerc had also achieved at the outset of the Australian Grand Prix last weekend.
However, Leclerc, who qualified fourth in China, is doubtful that Ferrari’s strong start-line performance will be sufficient to position them for victory throughout the entire distance of Sunday’s race.
“No, they are very formidable, without a doubt,” Leclerc said, referring to Mercedes. “And they currently possess a significant pace advantage, which is extremely important.”
“I believe that, particularly at the start of the race, we appear to have some flexibility with our deployment strategy, and they seem to encounter difficulties.”
“Furthermore, engaging in intense battery battles early on will have the effect of slowing them down and keeping us in contention.”
“So, hopefully that will be the situation tomorrow. The race should be quite exciting, probably both for external observers and from within the cockpit.”
Hamilton commented that Ferrari is concentrating on improving its qualifying performance relative to Mercedes and suspects the disparity in speed is linked to the power unit.
“Whether they possess more energy or greater crank power, we don’t know; it’s impossible to tell,” he stated. “However, they are simply very fast, especially in qualifying, but we are striving to make improvements in that area.”
“And then during the race, the gap closes a bit. I don’t know why, but I’m thankful that it is somewhat closer in race conditions.”
“It’s still not close enough. We definitely feel a lack of power when we’re following them. It’s incredibly difficult to keep pace, and you can see they simply cover more ground.”
“They just sustain their acceleration for longer. That’s what I experienced this morning. I was trying to compensate through the corners, but it made no real difference.”
“I was simply destroying my tyres.”