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Lewis Hamilton, who finished P7 in the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix, defended his performance. In a post-race interview, the Brit stated that he extracted the Ferrari car's full potential, and the SF-25 had no more pace left to offer.
Ferrari has witnessed one of the worst starts of their F1 career. After three weekends, they slipped to the fourth position in the Constructors championship with 35 points.
After a disappointing start in Australia, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified in China after their cars were found to be illegal. Moreover, in Japan, while the Monegasque driver finished P4, Hamilton dropped to P7.
Despite another underwhelming weekend in Suzuka, Hamilton defended his performance. He argued that the SF-25 had no more pace to offer, and he used everything at his helm. Moreover, the Brit added that the results of the Japanese GP were largely dependent on the qualifying session results.
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Talking to formule1, Lewis Hamilton said:
“When I was behind [Kimi] Antonelli, he was just so much faster in some parts of the circuit. I just couldn’t follow him. I really got the most out of my car today. There was nothing left in it. Given the performance of the rear of the car, the qualifying position was crucial. I think I probably would have been overtaken by the Mercedes if I had started further up.”
Hamilton struggled to overtake his successor in Mercedes, Kimi Antonelli. After starting the race from P8, the only overtake the seven-time world champion could pull off was against Isack Hadjar.
Having said that, Ferrari has a large scope of improvement as both drivers are unimpressed with the SF-25. In the post-race interview, Hamilton hinted that he has found an element that needs to be fixed in the future to improve the performance of the car.
Lewis Hamilton reassures complete faith in Ferrari
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton's highly anticipated debut season with Ferrari hasn't met any expectations in the first three races. Apart from the sprint race win in China, he has yet to finish in the top 5 of any Grand Prix.
However, regardless of the disappointing start, Hamilton had full faith in Ferrari's ability to bounce back. Talking to the BBC, he said:
"I saw someone said something about whether I'm losing faith in the team, which is complete rubbish. I have absolute 100% faith in this team. There was obviously a huge amount of hype at the beginning of the year. I don't know if everyone was expecting us to be winning from race one and winning the championship in our first year. That wasn't my expectation."
Lewis Hamilton further argued that coming into a new team, his immediate goal was to understand the car and gain as much knowledge as possible to adapt quickly. Overall, he is happy with the progress he has made with Ferrari so far in the first three races.
