Ferrari is too slow on straights – and can’t understand why

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton lamented their Ferrari Formula 1 car’s lack of top speed after the Brazil Grand Prix sprint – and were at a loss to explain it.

Leclerc and Hamilton qualified eighth and 11th respectively for the sprint, with Leclerc openly struggling with the SF-25’s instability, which has been a recurrent theme this season.

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Formula 1Here's what went wrong for Ferrari in F1 Brazil GP sprint qualifying

They managed to race up to fifth and seventh on Saturday, which was solely down to two factors – a great start from both, and Oscar Piastri’s crash from third. The duo still were unsatisfied with their machinery, ruing a lack of top speed this time around.

“I mean, I enjoyed the race,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1. “It was tricky conditions. I moved forwards – I had a really good start. And then after that, the red flag kind of neutralised it – I think I had a pretty decent pace up until then. Everyone got fresh tyres, it was just really difficult to overtake.

“But we do have problems with the balance of the car, and our top speed is really slow, so that's why we can't overtake. So we need to see how we can tackle that into qualifying.”

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

Leclerc certainly knows how he’s going to tackle it, as he is planning to ‘experiment’ when it comes to his set-up for the remainder of the weekend.

“This weekend has been very, very tough, unfortunately,” the Monegasque told Sky. “We have an issue on both cars; we cannot quite explain what's going on there. We are losing a lot of lap time in the straight.

“We know we have higher downforce than others, but that doesn't explain the gap that we see in the straight. So there's something off that I hope we can understand before qualifying.

“I’ll [experiment] anyway with the set-up, because at the moment we are not where we want to be, and I don't think it can be much worse than qualifying yesterday. So I’ll [experiment], and hopefully that will help us to do a step forward.”

Photos from Sao Paulo GP - Sprint Race

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Sao Paulo GP - Saturday, in photos

Sao Paulo GP - Saturday, in photos

Formula 1

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