Lewis Hamilton’s difficult end of his first season for Ferrari continues, as he qualified a lowly 18th place for the Sprint at the 2025 F1 Qatar GP, only ahead of the struggling Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto, and failing to make it out of the first part of qualifying for the second consecutive session.
“The weather’s nice” – Hamilton’s only positive from the weekend
The seven-time world champion already struggled in the first practice session, as he finished down in 12th whilst running a medium-downforce package in his Ferrari. For Sprint Qualifying, he decided to move towards a more aggresive rear wing angle, opting for more downforce – but that made little to no effect, as he explained afterwards.
“[It’s] the same as always,” he said when asked what difficulties he encountered during SQ1, before giving a blunt “no” to a question on whether the higher downforce improved the feeling of the car.
Hamilton said the only positive he can take from what has been a torrid F1 Qatar GP weekend so far is that the “weather is nice” in Doha.
Leclerc hits out at “unnecessary” tactics from Sainz
Unlike his team-mate, Charles Leclerc managed his frustration in the other Ferrari garage, but the lack of a clear run for his final SQ3 lap forcec him into a disappointing ninth spot on the grid for the F1 Sprint at the Qatar GP.
The Monegasque explains he was hampered by Carlos Sainz, as the Williams left a “significant” gap to the cars ahead, and in turn bunching up everyone behind, which led to some “stress” to get to the line in time, which meant he had to start the lap in range of the dirty air coming from the Spaniard’s car:
“Not all the session, but just the last lap [was compromised],” he said. “I think [Sainz] was taking quite a significant gap to the car ahead just before safety car line two, and then obviously puts all the guys behind under stress.
“He has the right to do that, but it’s very annoying, and a bit unnecessary sometimes.
“So it’s a shame, but I had to start the lap too close [to him].”
P5 would’ve been possible with a clean lap, despite “very slow” Ferrari
Leclerc’s time of a 1:20.622 put him ninth on the grid, but just 0.103s off Yuki Tsunoda in fifth – which makes him think a top five would’ve been achievable with a clean final run in SQ3, despite an honest admission that the Ferrari is “very slow” so far in the F1 Qatar GP weekend:
“When you see the gap between top five and us, you can say that I could have [had] a better qualifying,” he said. “But apart from that, we are very slow and we are struggling once again this weekend. So it’s a tough one again.
“Again, I think it’s a few hundreds to Yuki [Tsunoda] in fifth, or a tenth [of a second], something like that.
“So I think there was a potential to do that. But on the other hand, we’ve been struggling. Yeah, it’s been a difficult weekend so far.”
