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Lewis Hamilton has sent a firm message back to Ferrari’s base in Maranello after Mercedes dominated sprint qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix on Friday.
Hamilton, who won the sprint race from pole in Shanghai last year, qualified a respectable fourth for this year’s sprint but was 0.641 seconds short of George Russell’s pole-setting lap.
Russell led home another one-two Mercedes finish – mirroring qualifying and the race last week at the season-opener in Melbourne – and Hamilton urged Ferrari’s engineers to “improve the power” of their engine, with Mercedes a step ahead of the rest of the field in this department.
Hamilton said: “I’m really pleased with the session, the engineers did a fantastic job to turn the car around car, it felt great. But we’re losing a lot of time on the straights.
“We have a lot of work to do, we have to push back in Maranello to improve in power. It’s something we were conscious of last year, we thought that Mercedes started earlier and they’ve done a fantastic job.
“We have to push to close the gap. When you’re down on power, it is what it is.”
Ferrari brought a unique rear-wing upgrade to China – nicknamed the “Macarena”, given its 180-degree inversion – but opted not to use it in sprint qualifying after it impacted cornering speed in practice.
“I don’t know why we went back on it [rear wing] we rushed it to get it here,” Hamilton said. “They did a great job. It was maybe a little bit premature; we’ll work to bring it back when it’s ready.”
Hamilton pipped Charles Leclerc by four-tenths in qualifying, with the Monegasque having to settle for sixth place after losing speed on the back straight due to an energy deployment issue.
“It was a very frustrating session,” Leclerc said. “I lost half a second in the back straight for whatever reason, need to analyse that.
“In the race we should be a bit stronger. However Mercedes seems to be a step ahead, for some reason their power unit finds a lot of lap time in qualifying, in the race we are closer.”
Leclerc is third in the world championship after his podium finish in Australia last weekend. Ferrari may have an advantage during the 19-lap sprint at the start line, given their prowess at lights out last week.
