“Italy had never experienced such an indignity”: Ex-F1 supremo says Ferrari double DSQ ‘shocked’ former boss

Former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone blasted Ferrari after their double disqualification at the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix. The Italian team were stripped of their 18 points at the Shanghai International Circuit after both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were found guilty of having an illegal car in the post-race FIA checks.

The Maranello-based outfit had finished P5 and P6 in China main race with Leclerc leading his seven-time F1 world champion teammate. However, the Monegasque was found guilty of having an underweight car by 1kg despite putting the missing front wing endplate on his SF-25.

On the other hand, Hamilton's car was found to have excessive plank wear as a result of running his car too low to the ground and pushing at the end of the race. As reported by Blick, Ecclestone met with former Ferrari team boss Luca di Montezemolo and spoke about the double disqualification, saying (via Formula Passion):

“I met former Ferrari boss Luca Cordero di Montezemolo in London. He was shocked by Ferrari’s double disqualification in China. Italy had never experienced such an indignity since the start of the Formula 1 world championship."

The 94-year-old also commented on Charles Leclerc's car being underweight and added:

“For decades, after crossing the finish line, people have tried to collect as many stones as possible with their tires by going into the gravel.”

It was the first double disqualification in the Prancing Horses's history of 75 racing at the pinnacle of motorsport.

Charles Leclerc comments on the reason behind Ferrari's double DSQ

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc stated that the double DSQ was a result of "playing with the limits" of the car in terms of generating maximum performance by lowering the car.

In the pre-race press conference in Japan, the eight-time F1 race winner said (via Autosport):

“Obviously whenever you do mistakes you learn from them, especially when they’re costing that much. Everybody is playing with the limit and trying to be as close as possible to it, but to have both cars underneath [i.e. beyond] it was a big pain, and at the end of the day we didn’t need that.

"It’s been a very difficult first part of the season, the first two races were very difficult, and the pace wasn’t where we expected it to be. To lose more points than we already did [through underperforming in Melbourne] hurts the team a lot," he added.

The Italian team had made a positive start to the Chinese Grand Prix after they dominated the Sprint segment with Lewis Hamilton taking the pole position and his first Sprint win.

However, the double DSQ dented the progress from the weekend and put Ferrari level on points with Williams F1 with 17 points in P5, however, they are behind the Grove-based outfit due to Alex Albon's P5 finish in Australia.