Hamilton calls for Ferrari push to close PU deficit to Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari has the car to compete with Mercedes but needs to find more performance from its power unit to get on level terms.

Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid for the Sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix on Friday, having also secured a one-two in qualifying and the race in Australia last weekend. Hamilton was pleased with Ferrari’s work to deliver a car that enabled him to qualify fourth – 0.020s behind Lando Norris in third – but highlighted the size of the deficit in a straight line as particularly concerning.

“Really pleased with the session,” Hamilton said. “My team did a really great job. My engineers did a fantastic job to turn the car around because in FP1 it was a tricky session with that spin. And the car generally felt great. I think we're losing – I think it is on the straights. It's a lot of time to be losing.

“We have a lot of work to do. We really have to push so hard back in Maranello to improve on power. It was something that I think we were conscious of last year that we thought that Mercedes started earlier than us or the rest, which they did last time as well. So they've done a fantastic job and we've got to step up. We've got to push to be able to close that gap.

"I think car-wise, the car feels great. I think we can compete with them through corners. But when you're down on power, it's just the way it is.”

Hamilton’s spin in FP1 came when he hit the brakes for Turn 6, locking the rear axle and swapping ends shortly after Ferrari’s innovative rear wing solution had closed from Straight Mode. While the team did not suggest the incidents were related, Ferrari did remove the wing from both cars for Sprint qualifying and so entered the session with a configuration it hadn’t yet run in Shanghai.

“I don't really know why we went back on it. I think we rushed it to get it here and it was not supposed to be on the cards until I think it was race four or five or something like that," Hamilton said. "So they did a great job to rush it here. We only had two of them and it was maybe a little bit premature, so we took it off. The car was still great and we'll work to try and bring it back when it's ready.”

Teammate Charles Leclerc had a more challenging SQ3 to end up sixth on the grid after a loss of time on the long back straight, but he believes Ferrari will be more competitive in race trim.

“It doesn't really change the picture from where we are,” Leclerc said. “I think in the race we should be relatively a bit stronger than where we were now in qualifying.

“However, Mercedes seems to be still a step ahead. In qualifying, for some reason, the Mercedes power unit finds a lot of lap time. We don't quite find that amount of lap time just yet in qualifying, but in the race we are closer, so I'm still hopeful we can come back tomorrow.”