Ferrari has responded to the double disqualification of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix.
Leclerc and Hamilton came home in fifth and sixth respectively at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday, but both cars were summoned to the stewards after technical inspection.
Leclerc’s car was found to be a kilo underweight, with the front wing damage sustained in the Lap 1 clash with Hamilton a likely contributor.
Hamilton’s Ferrari was found to have excessive plank wear.
Upon review, the stewards had no choice but to disqualify both Ferrari drivers and in both written verdicts wrote that the offending team “acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.”
Ferrari responds to F1 Chinese GP DSQ
Ferrari followed this with a statement of its own.
“Following the FIA post-race scrutineering both our cars were found not to conform to the regulations for different reasons,” it read.
“Car 16 [Leclerc] was found to be underweight by 1 kg and car 44 [Hamilton]’s rearward skid wear was found to be 0.5mm below the limit.
“Charles was on a one-stop strategy today and this meant his tyre wear was very high, causing the car to be underweight.
“With regard to Lewis’ skid wear, we misjudged the consumption by a small margin.
“There was no intention to gain any advantage.
“We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again.
“Clearly it’s not the way we wanted to end our Chinese GP weekend, neither for ourselves, nor for our fans whose support for us is unwavering.”
It’s a massive hammer blow to Ferrari’s title credentials and the result sees the Scuderia languishing 61 points behind Constructors’ leaders McLaren.
Hamilton meanwhile, has seen a weekend that commenced with pole and victory in the Sprint end on dire terms and he now has just nine points to his name after the first two rounds of the 2025 F1 campaign.
READ MORE – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton disqualified from F1 Chinese GP
