Lewis Hamilton baffled by ‘completely different’ Ferrari in Dutch GP sprint qualifying

Hamilton left searching for answers at Zandvoort

Lewis Hamilton was left confused by Ferrari’s sudden loss of pace during sprint qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix, having ended the opening practice session in a much more encouraging position.

Russell’s performance secured Mercedes a leading position for the sprint, as detailed in our report on his Dutch GP sprint pole. For Hamilton, the more pressing issue was the contrast between Ferrari’s Friday sessions.

Minor changes, major consequences

“Not a good session, unfortunately, that’s just the way it is,” Hamilton said. “FP1 felt good. We made subtle adjustments to the car, but when we got into qualifying, it was a completely different car.”

He added: “We need to figure out what went wrong, and we’ll do our best tomorrow.”

Limited opportunity before the sprint

Hamilton’s immediate target is to recover a strong points-scoring result in Saturday’s sprint while continuing his title challenge against Mercedes. However, the parc fermé regulations mean Ferrari cannot make significant changes before the sprint race has been completed, limiting the scope for an immediate reset.

Asked whether he knew where improvements could be found for qualifying and the grand prix, Hamilton remained cautious but pointed to the data as the route forward.

“Yes, I think so. We’ll look at the data and then we’ll make a determination,” he said. “But we just got to go through the data and figure it out.”

Hamilton also noted that Leclerc’s Ferrari remained closer to the set-up used in FP1: “Charles was in a slightly different place to me, a bit closer to where I was [in FP1].”

That comparison gives Ferrari a useful reference point. The challenge now is to understand why two apparently minor changes transformed Hamilton’s car, then extract a more predictable performance from it when the sprint begins.