Hamilton: This result isn’t a true reflection of the car’s potential

Hamilton holds the all-time record of 105 Grand Prix victories, but it remains uncertain when he will make it 106 any time soon with Ferrari, despite his recent China Sprint Race victory. He has won a GP only twice in the past three seasons and remains winless in the first two main races of the 2025 campaign, heading into Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix.

Hamilton said at Suzuka: “There was obviously a huge amount of hype at the beginning of the year. I don't know if everyone was expecting us to be winning from race one and winning the championship in our first year. That wasn’t my expectation. I know that I’m coming into a new culture, a new team and it’s going to take time.”

The 40-year-old Briton showed promise in Saturday’s final practice session, running among the frontrunners. But in qualifying, it was Max Verstappen who delivered again—securing a track-record pole for Red Bull on his final lap.

Hamilton qualified P8, roughly in line with expectations as McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull, and Ferrari continue to battle for supremacy. But he would have been targeting a lot more.

Reflecting on the session in Japan, Hamilton admitted: “It was a challenging Saturday for us. We made some changes to the car ahead of qualifying which, unfortunately, didn’t deliver the improvements we were aiming for."

Hamilton continued: “The car felt more balanced in the earlier stages, but I experienced significant understeer in Q3 which led to a couple of small mistakes that cost us. This result isn’t a true reflection of the car’s potential. There’s performance to be found and the team has been working incredibly hard behind the scenes.

“We’ll analyse the data overnight and do everything we can to come back stronger in the race," ventured Hamilton, a five-time Grand Prix winner at Suzuka, his last victory at the iconic circuit came in 2018 with Mercedes.

McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have claimed victory in the season’s opening two races in Australia and China, respectively, and are also expected to challenge strongly at Suzuka.

Hamilton’s start to life at Ferrari has been challenging. He finished 10th in Melbourne, won the Sprint in Shanghai, but was disqualified from the main race—along with teammate Charles Leclerc—due to technical infringements. It was a major embarrassment for the best-financed team on the grid.

Looking ahead to the race and relishing the return to one of his favourite tracks, Hamilton said:
“This track is awesome. It never ceases to amaze you when you get on this circuit. We've got some performance to pick up. We're not the quickest at the moment. But I think there's a good baseline.”

In the #16 Ferrari, Charles Leclerc had a better day and is quoted in the Ferrari report: "The lap was really good. I put everything in that lap. There wasn't much I could have done better. Yesterday I was quite happy because we worked really well and unlocked some performance in the car.

"In qualifying, it started to go away from us a little bit, especially in Q3. I had either a lot of oversteer or understeer but the lap I did, I was really happy with it. We need to keep working. There's still a big gap compared to McLaren and Red Bull and this is our target.

"On the whole, it's been positive because I feel a lot more comfortable with the car. We really found something from my driving style that seems to work a bit better and gave me a lot more confidence for the rest of qualifying and this is positive for the rest of the season," added Leclerc.

Ferrari have not won the Japanese Grand Prix since Michael Schumacher did so for them in 2004. On Sunday, the great Italian Scuderia will be seeking to put behind them a double-DQ at the Chinese Grand Prix, with an error-free team performance and a strong result at Suzuka.