Lewis Hamilton claims his Ferrari has ‘deficit’ to Charles Leclerc’s

Lewis Hamilton has raised eyebrows with an intriguing claim that his Ferrari F1 car has a “deficit” compared to teammate Charles Leclerc’s.

The seven-time world champion’s mixed start to life at Ferrari continued at the Japanese Grand Prix as he struggled to a lowly seventh-placed finish.

Hamilton’s new teammate Leclerc fared better, qualifying and finishing fourth ahead of the two Mercedes cars, despite Ferrari lacking the pace to challenge the McLarens and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.

After Sunday’s grand prix, Hamilton revealed that his car is “underperforming”.

“I’m really hoping in the next race we’ll see hopefully some positive changes,” Hamilton told media in the Suzuka paddock.

“Through the first three races there’s been a bit of a deficit between both sides of the garage on some elements of the car.

“On my side, something is underperforming. It’s good to know. With what I had, that is the best result I could get.”

The 40-year-old Briton is hoping a fix will be found in time for the next race in Bahrain.

“We found something on the car that's been underperforming the last three races. I'm really hoping that when that's fixed, I'll start getting a bit better results,” he added.

“I'm losing just over a tenth a lap with this issue we have. I'm hoping in the next race it's fixed.”

Is set-up choice behind Ferrari deficit?

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur suggested the performance gap between Hamilton and Leclerc in Japan was linked to their different set-up choices.

“The balance and so are linked to their choices," Vasseur said.

“We are still exploring the new car and we are taking different directions to suit the drivers.

"I think Bahrain will be a different picture because we did three days in Bahrain last month, and we are more in control.”

Vasseur’s comments appear to align with Leclerc’s revelation that he was able to make a breakthrough with a new set-up direction.

“I think I learned plenty about the car this weekend, so that is the positive of the weekend really,” Leclerc said.

“As much as we are disappointed with the fourth place, we should be happy of us maximising the result and we should be happy about all the lessons learned this weekend.

“As I said, Friday I think was a really, really good day for that. I really went in quite extreme directions in an idea that I’ve had since two or three weeks.

“I wanted to try it and it worked out, so I was really happy with that.”