Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc almost locked out the front row on Saturday before George Russell’s controversial late pole lap, but Ferrari went backwards on Sunday as the Mercedes took the win.
Hamilton finished fifth, while Leclerc fell from second to eighth in a race affected by tyre degradation, balance issues and a three-stop strategy that failed to offset Ferrari’s lack of pace.
The result came one round after Hamilton’s breakthrough first win for Ferrari in Barcelona, which was also the team’s first victory since the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix.
It also came after Ferrari introduced an engine upgrade in Austria, though Hamilton said the race exposed lingering weaknesses in both tyre management and power deployment.
“I don’t know why we were so slow today. We really struggled on pace, degradation was really, really high, much worse than anticipated,” Hamilton said.
“I thought it was going to be like that and I told the team, they said it was going to be a two-stop and I was like, ‘I don’t think it’s a two-stop today, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make a two-stop work’.”
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“Big deg in that first stint, trying to hold onto George [Russell] and then every stint, mostly we were just struggling with power.”
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Hamilton passed Leclerc for second on the opening lap and initially looked capable of pressuring Russell, but Ferrari’s pace faded as the race developed.
He became the first of the front-runners to pit, with Ferrari eventually committing him to a three-stop race that left him unable to match the podium contenders.
Leclerc endured an even tougher afternoon, slipping down the order as he struggled with rear grip and tyre temperature after showing strong one-lap speed in qualifying.
“An incredibly difficult race. Very, very low grip overall. Just struggled to have the car and the tyres, especially in the right window, especially the rears,” Leclerc said.
“Just missing a lot of rear grip. There’s still a lot of work to be done.”
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur admitted the team had not done enough race preparation after a difficult Friday and said it had likely been too focused on trying to stay with Mercedes early on.
“It was a tough weekend, especially coming after Barcelona,” Vasseur said.
“I don’t think we got the weekend off on the right foot on Friday, as we struggled a lot in FP1 and FP2 and weren’t able to complete proper long runs in representative conditions.
“In the end, we managed to recover some performance over a single lap in qualifying, with P2 and P3, which was a good result — but we probably didn’t prepare the race as well as we should have.
“Looking back, we were probably too focused on Mercedes today. We pushed too hard in the opening laps with both cars and then perhaps reacted too aggressively with the strategy, trying to stay with them when, realistically, that wasn’t our race.”
Hamilton added Ferrari also needed to understand its deficit on the straights, particularly compared to Mercedes.
“On Friday we were down six tenths just in straightline speed and I have to go and see what the case was today, but I’m sure it was not insignificant,” Hamilton said.
“We’re going to have to push really, really hard to see when we can get the next power upgrade. When you’re around these guys… it’s deployment.
“It doesn’t necessarily feel so much as power because when you come out of the corner it feels like you’ve got the grunt.
“It’s just deployment at the end. Ours tails off. Particularly [compared to] Mercedes, they just keep going, so got a look at why and how we can improve that but that’s not going come for a while.”
Hamilton’s fifth place, combined with Russell’s victory, dropped him to third in the drivers’ championship, 46 points behind leader Kimi Antonelli, while Ferrari remains second in the constructors’ championship, 98 points behind Mercedes.
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