Did Ferrari ask Lewis Hamilton to ‘row back’ on F1 car complaints?

Lewis Hamilton’s comments ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix have left Ted Kravitz wondering whether Ferrari told him not to complain about their F1 car.

Ferrari are bringing an upgraded floor to Bahrain in the hope it can turnaround their fortunes after enduring a frustrating and lacklustre start to the 2025 season.

F1’s most iconic team were billed as the nearest challengers to McLaren in pre-season but the team have lagged well behind their rivals across the opening three races. Ferrari are languishing fourth in the constructors’ championship and are already 76 points adrift of McLaren.

It is widely believed in the F1 paddock that Ferrari are battling a ride height issue, and Hamilton’s Chinese Grand Prix disqualification for excessive plank wear did little to quell the speculation.

Ferrari have remained tight-lipped about a rumoured fundamental design flaw with their SF-25, but Hamilton hinted at an underlying problem after only managing seventh place in the Japanese Grand Prix last time out.

The seven-time world champion was much less willing to get into the intrigue surrounding Ferrari’s car when he was grilled about the topic during Thursday’s media day at Sakhir.

And Hamilton’s change of stance was picked up on by Sky Sports F1’s pitlane reporter Kravitz.

“The other top story was Lewis Hamilton not really wanting to expand at all on what it is on the car that isn’t right,” Kravitz said on his ‘Podbook’.

“He was kind of rowing back what he said at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix. I don’t know whether he’s been told by his team ‘can you just not saying anything more about that’.

“Hamilton wasn’t in the mood to elaborate about what ills are on the SF-25.

“Much fewer words than he’d given at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix when he hinted something was wrong on the car. He really wanted to row it back.”

What did Lewis Hamilton say on Thursday?

Hamilton initially moved to downplay the suggestion that Ferrari are battling a problem with their 2025 challenger.

“We’ve got an upgrade this weekend so I’m excited we’re going to hopefully have a bit more downforce,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.

“I’m not really feeling a huge amount of issues just we lack overall performance at the moment pace wise, which we will hopefully take a step this weekend.

“On my side, it’s rear-end a little bit [I’m struggling with] and that’s about it.”

Speaking in his later written session, Hamilton was even more reluctant to give away specifics.

"We’ve got new floors this weekend, so it should be gone,” he said.

“The team has worked really hard, as teams do, they work incredibly hard to be able to bring upgrades. So to have that here at the track we tested at, more knowledge about the car and how to extract more from it - I feel really positive going into the weekend.”