Did whispered Ferrari car flaw lead to Lewis Hamilton’s DSQ?

Ferrari’s 2025 F1 car has come under the microscope after a disappointing start to the season.

F1’s most iconic team mysteriously struggled for pace all weekend in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, with Charles Leclerc and new signing Lewis Hamilton coming home an underwhelming eighth and 10th.

Things appeared to improve at the Chinese Grand Prix when Hamilton converted his first pole position into a commanding sprint race victory, but Ferrari’s challenge faded in regular qualifying and the main grand prix.

Leclerc and Hamilton could only finish fifth and sixth on the road but were excluded from the results for different technical infringements which left their respective cars illegal.

Hamilton’s disqualification came because his plank was found to have excessive wear by half a millimetre, while Leclerc’s car was 1kg under the 800kg weight limit.

Ferrari’s ride height has been a topic of discussion since the first round in Melbourne, where there were whispers in the paddock that the team had to raise their car due to plank wear concerns.

The Scuderia have not commented on the rumoured issue but Hamilton’s exclusion in Shanghai has raised eyebrows about a possible fundamental flaw with the SF-25.

"It would be standard for everyone to raise the car in Australia because of the bumps and they are detrimental to downforce and plank wear,” Sky Sports F1’s Bernie Collins said.

"In Australia, Ferrari were not that strong. Some of it was down to strategy but the performance in qualifying was not that strong, so maybe they have a car that's very sensitive to ride height in terms of aero performance. All of these cars are because they're all ground-effect cars, but maybe it is more sensitive than others.

"I would be surprised that the Sprint in China was not a good enough indication that you would be illegal on plank wear. If they have got what we would call a 'peaky' ride height, which means there's a very small optimum ride height that you can have a good aerodynamic platform in, that is an issue for a car.

"You want to be fit to run a range of ride heights because of all these range of tracks. For example, in Austria there are intense kerbs so you want to add a bit of ride height there.

"Maybe the aero platform is too peaky.”

Sprint weekend set-up changes not ‘unusual’

Following a low-key qualifying performance, seven-time world champion Hamilton admitted the set-up changes he made after his sprint win made his Ferrari more difficult to drive around the Shanghai International Circuit.

Collins explained it is not “unusual” for teams to make set-up changes over the course of a sprint weekend.

"What's different between this and Austin two years ago [when Hamilton's Mercedes was excluded for excessive plank wear], you were not allowed to change the set-up between the Sprint and main race, so when you got the plank-wear read in the Sprint, you couldn't react to it,” she said.

"In the Sprint, there was a lot more management than the main race because they did more laps pushing on a hard tyre, whereas on the medium they did a lot of management in the Sprint, so it wouldn't surprise me if the wear and fuel usage went up in the main race.”

Assessing whether Hamilton’s two-stop strategy could have played a role, Collins added: “The two-stopper will lead to pushing more on each lap. The only slight counter to that for Lewis is because he did two stints on the hard, he goes through that graining phase, which does control the pace a little bit.

"The only other thing for Lewis is, I don't know if he had any damage from the Leclerc incident? The FIA say there were 'no mitigating circumstances' and if Ferrari could prove damage or lack of downforce, they would have been able to do that but they didn’t.

"As for Leclerc, who did a one-stop, people were saying maybe a one-stop was possible. They didn't know how much the hard tyre would wear, so they didn't have an estimated mass loss for the hard tyre but they are allowed to take pick-up and they changed Leclerc's front wing.

"I don't know where the loss in mass has come from.”

Bump in the road for Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton

The double disqualification meant Ferrari lost 18 points in China, marking a huge blow to their title aspirations in both world championships.

After just two races, Ferrari find themselves fifth in the constructors’ championship and 61 points behind McLaren, while Leclerc and Hamilton are already well adrift in the drivers’ standings.

"It's a bump because Ferrari had the wrong strategy in Australia, in China they have been disqualified so should have done better, and they arguably had the wrong strategy because Lewis should not have pitted for a second time,” Collins said.

"Lewis was really struggling in the car on Sunday and the car was illegal. The changes in set-up didn't react in the way he wanted to, or he wouldn't have been so slow in the race, and they've been illegal.

"So it is a bump. If they go through it and they find whatever's wrong, then Lewis can get over that pretty quickly. But it's one of these little things that adds to the lack of trust.

"When Sebastian Vettel came to us at Aston Martin, I really wanted him to think we were good at our jobs.

"I really wanted him to go 'if she calls me to pit, I'm going to do it' because I trust the team. Now we have had a strategy thing, a radio thing and now disqualification, so it makes the driver unsure."