Hamilton: Ferrari a ‘huge chunk off the pace’ despite upgrade

Lewis Hamilton has cast doubt on the effectiveness of Ferrari’s latest upgrade package after both he and Charles Leclerc struggled for pace during Friday’s running at the Austrian Grand Prix.

The seven-time world champion described Ferrari’s pace as “a huge chunk off” the leaders, casting doubt on the team’s prospects for a strong showing in qualifying.

Ferrari arrived in Austria with a revised floor aimed at addressing persistent rear suspension issues that have plagued their 2025 campaign.

Whie the development was billed as a step forward, Hamilton, who finished 10th in Friday’s second practice, almost a full second behind Lando Norris’ benchmark, was unimpressed with the upgrade’s impact.

Hamilton: “We’re a huge chunk off”

Speaking after Friday’s second practice session, Hamilton acknowledged the substantial effort behind the update but made it clear the end result had fallen short of expectations.

“A huge amount of work went on to bring the floor but as you see, it’s not necessarily changed our competitiveness,” commented the 40-year-old.

“The car doesn’t feel bad but we’re a huge chunk off pace wise. We need to look into that.

"We will just keep pushing and try and dial the car in more, and see what we can get. It’s obviously very close in the top 10 so a tenth can make the difference so we will work towards trying to gaining at least that overnight.”

Hamilton’s Friday was made even more challenging by a gearbox issue that severely limited his FP1 running. The 40-year-old was only able to complete one flying lap in the morning session before the problem curtailed his efforts.

“Not spectacular. We had a problem in the morning with the gearbox which was obviously difficult, frustrating for everyone in the garage because the boys did a great job,” he said.

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“They kept topping it up but we could only do one lap so we couldn’t do the long runs and stuff. I think we recovered OK with it. They did a great job changing the gearbox and getting us ready for P2.

“Charles was six-tenths off. I was close to a second off. Not ideal but I think there’s lots to learn so we will make some changes. Hopefully we can try and get a little bit closer. We won’t be at the front.”

Leclerc Echoes Frustration: “Performance not quite there yet”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc also had a compromised day, sitting out FP1 to allow Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic an opportunity to drive in a competitive session. Though Leclerc quickly adapted in FP2, he admitted the car still lacks the performance needed to fight at the sharp end.

“Not really. FP1 didn’t really compromise FP2,” Leclerc explained. “I felt kind of at ease on the track straight away but not really as easily as the car and how it feels.

“There’s quite a bit of work that needs to be done for tomorrow. It doesn’t feel like the performance is quite there yet but hopefully we will put everything together tomorrow and take a step forward.

“There’s quite a lot of work to be done tonight.”

With the tightly contested midfield offering little margin for error, Ferrari faces indeed a critical overnight effort to extract more speed from the car ahead of Saturday’s qualifying.

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