Ferrari under scrutiny for set-up choice after Lewis Hamilton progress

Jamie Chadwick was surprised by Ferrari’s decision to favour a low-downforce set-up at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Ferrari made a strong start to the weekend in Baku as Lewis Hamilton led a 1-2 in Friday practice as the Scuderia completed a back-to-back comparison with different downforce set-ups.

While Hamilton favoured a higher-downforce configuration, Charles Leclerc ran a low-downforce set-up. Ferrari ultimately decided to commit to the extreme low-downforce route on both cars for qualifying and the race.

Ferrari’s weekend unravelled in qualifying, with Leclerc crashing out leaving him only 10th on the grid, while Hamilton started 12th after suffering a shock Q2 elimination.

In the grand prix, Hamilton and Leclerc could only finish eighth and ninth.

“He definitely found something on Friday, particularly with the braking, that he seemed more comfortable with and at a track like Baku, that’s very important,” Chadwick said of Hamilton’s weekend on The F1 Show podcast.

“He was very strong on Friday. Yes, they used an extra set of mediums but he was very strong, a good performance.

“But then on Saturday they reverted to Charles’ downforce level and went more in his direction and I was a little bit surprised they did that, especially given where Lewis was earlier in the weekend. They must have seen something in the data that led them in that direction.”

Despite Ferrari’s latest underwhelming showing, Chadwick believes there are reasons for the Italian outfit to be more hopeful at the upcoming races.

“I think where they can be excited is Singapore no, but Austin and Mexico they won both of those races last year, so they’ve got good tracks coming up,” the three-time W Series champion said.

“And Lewis is close to Charles. So between the two of them I’m hoping they can find some performance in the car but also push each other on to get some performance out of themselves as well.”

Ferrari still have things to sort out

Sky Sports F1 pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz insisted Ferrari have plenty of work to do after a disappointing weekend in which they conceded second place in the constructors’ championship to Mercedes.

“Early promise went unrewarded I think is the best thing you can say,” Kravitz summarised.

“The have to cling on to that early promise because conditions didn’t go their way, the fact it was a bit cooler didn’t go their way. Qualifying certainly didn’t go their way and that was amongst the drivers and the team as well.

“Even in the race we heard Lewis on the radio to Riccardo Adami his engineer, saying ‘I’m struggling a bit here, any ideas, can you help me out?’ Or was that in qualifying, I can’t remember. There wasn’t really a response from the engineer.

“So still things to sort out for Ferrari before they get a podium on merit.

“It was a weird one. Kind of felt they were getting somewhere and it then it sort of unravelled in qualifying. They are now not the constructors’ challengers to McLaren, suddenly it’s Mercedes, so yeah, not a great weekend.”