Lewis Hamilton confirms ‘issue’ as rumours swirl about 'inherent' Ferrari problem

Lewis Hamilton has confirmed Ferrari have an “issue” with their 2025 F1 car which is in the process of being fixed.

The seven-time world champion could only qualify eighth and finished a low-key seventh at the Japanese Grand Prix as Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc took a distant fourth.

It has been a largely difficult and underwhelming start to the 2025 season for Ferrari, other than Hamilton’s pole and victory in the China sprint race.

Following Sunday’s grand prix at Suzuka, Hamilton revealed his car has a problem which has caused it to underperform “for the last three races”.

"I did the best I could today. I was generally lacking performance compared to the cars ahead of me, particularly the Mercedes, the McLaren and obviously the Red Bull,” Hamilton said.

"We found something on the car that has been underperforming for the last three races so I am really hoping when that is fixed that I will start getting better results.

“I’m losing just over a tenth a lap with the issue we have. I’m hoping at the next race it’s fixed.

“Otherwise, qualifying is clearly really very important. I’m just not extracting the best out of the tyres, so that’s something to work on.”

Asked if Ferrari are confident they can solve the problem, Hamilton replied: “They are aware of it. They don’t know what’s caused it, or why, so when the new component comes it will be gone and it will be the same with both cars.

“Considering that I’m relatively happy with the race pace that I did have, given what I had. Otherwise a good performance from the team. The engineers and the mechanics all did a good job.”

Do Ferrari have a fundamental issue with their car?

Ferrari have been dogged with ride height issues across the opening three races of the season, with Hamilton disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix after his plank was found to have excessive wear.

Paddock whispers suggest Ferrari can’t run their car stiff on high fuel and therefore are having to lift it higher than both drivers like, which is costing performance.

Ferrari have not yet addressed the issue publicly.

“There are some rumours in the paddock that there is a fundamental problem with the rear of this car,” Sky Sports F1 presenter Simon Lazenby said.

“They are kind of skirting around it at the moment but you wonder if it is an individual issue whether they are going to be able to develop their way around it, or at some point they go ‘we’re not going to be able to fix it and catch up with Red Bull and McLaren this year, we’ll have to switch focus to 2026.’”

1997 world champion and Sky pundit Jacques Villeneuve said: “It gives credit to the rumour that there’s something at the rear and they have to run it higher and so on.

“He said there’s something going on, nobody has a clue why it’s happening, but once we have something new that’s built the issue should be away.

“So it sounds like a stiffness issue somewhere. Something that’s happening and it looks like they are making a whole new bit because they are not sure which one is creating the issue.”

Meanwhile, Naomi Schiff added: “It does sound like they have an inherent problem with the car which needs to be solved before they can make real progress.”