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Lewis Hamilton was left feeling devastated after another disappointing qualifying for Ferrari in the F1 Imola GP. The Italian team came into the 2025 F1 season on the back of a highly competitive 2024, where it almost won the title from McLaren. With regulations expected to stay stable, there wasn't much shake-up expected in the pecking order.
The Italian team, however, decided to change 99% of the car for the 2025 F1 season. Coming into the year, Ferrari was expected to be one of the teams at the sharp end of the grid. The new car, however, is just nowhere close to that, and it doesn't appear to have the strengths that the previous challenger did.
The situation has not been good this season, with the team having only a few highlights, with Lewis Hamilton's sprint win in China being one of them. Ferrari has, however, hit the lowest point in 2025 in Imola when neither of the two drivers was able to make it to Q3.
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Both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were bumped off in Q2 as drivers from 7 other teams made it to Q3. Talking to the media, including motorsport, the 7x F1 champion admitted he was devastated as he said,
“I feel super gutted, devastated that we weren't able to get through. I really feel like we've made so many positive steps through the weekend. The car was generally feeling better."
He added,
“The brakes were better today. The balance was really nice. In Q2, run one felt decent. And then when we put the new tyres on, for some reason, it just didn't have any more grip. I couldn't go any faster. And you see everyone else... they clearly managed to switch the tyres on.”
Lewis Hamilton's teammate Charles Leclerc echoes the sentiments
Lewis Hamilton's teammate Charles Leclerc was even more devastated as the driver conceded that this was the most that the car was capable of. Leclerc has maintained this stance in the last few races that he is getting the most out of the car but unfortunately, there isn't much that the car is capable of at the moment. Talking to the media, the driver said,
“There's not enough performance in the car and I keep repeating myself. There's just not the potential that we hope [for in] this car at the moment and we need to be better.”
The Ferrari duo would be starting the race in P11 and P12. The two could maybe try and pull off the alternative strategy and start the race on hard tires, but the nature of the track, where overtakes are hard to come by, means neither Charles Leclerc nor Lewis Hamilton would be able to progress through the field as seamlessly as they would have on other tracks.
