Ralf Schumacher finds harsh words for Ferrari after the double disqualification and wonders how experienced engineers can make such mistakes
Sometimes it’s the finest nuances that make the difference between fame and glory on the one hand and ridicule and scorn on the other in Formula 1. Or, to project it onto Ferrari’s situation after the Chinese Grand Prix in 2025: 0.5 millimeters for Lewis Hamilton, and one kilogram for Charles Leclerc.
The double disqualification in Shanghai comes at the worst possible time for Ferrari. Just six days after the disappointing season opener in Melbourne, Hamilton’s surprising victory in the F1 sprint had just about restored some sense of optimism, only to be followed by the next setback on race Sunday.
After the FIA decision (which, by the way, was not protested), Ferrari engineers stated that Leclerc’s car was underweight because the switch from a two-stop to a one-stop strategy meant that the tires were lighter than expected after the finish due to the high wear.
“However,” warns Ralf Schumacher, also with regard to Leclerc’s front wing end plate breaking away at the beginning of the race, ”it’s not the case that it should be two kilos. You should factor that in as a safety margin.”
“Leclerc has now driven the whole race with around two kilos less, maybe even 2.5 less. If you assume that ten kilos can mean three-tenths, you just have to say, ‘Okay, so and so is the advantage over the whole race seen on each lap.’ And of course that adds up.”
The simplified calculation goes like this: Assuming a two-kilogram weight advantage for Leclerc due to the rule violation, that would be about 0.06 seconds per lap on a track like Shanghai – or 3.36 seconds over the full race distance of 56 laps. That would have pushed him back from 5th to 6th place behind Hamilton in the provisional race result.
Schumacher describes it as “inability” in an interview with Sky, what happened to Ferrari, and criticizes that the Hamilton case is “almost even worse”: “After the sprint, you can assume that the engineer should know what he is doing. You can see the wear on the underbody. This should not happen at all,” he says.
The Sky expert suspects: “No stone will be left unturned now. It will probably even have major or minor consequences internally. Because one thing is clear, of course: now they had the speed, Saturday was so good, Sunday was rather slow – and now they’ve also been disqualified. That’s with the declared goal of competing for the world championship. Of course, that’s not on.”
Schumacher does not see the FIA’s strict action in retrospectively disqualifying the two Ferraris and Pierre Gasly’s Alpine as small-minded, but as completely correct: “That’s why the rules are very strict and apply equally to everyone. That’s why I think this consequence is very good and also the right thing to do,” he emphasizes.
