Author: Giles Richards

• Team say they will learn from mistakes at Chinese GP
• Hamilton’s sixth place undone in second race for Ferrari

Ferrari have admitted they were at fault for the mistakes that led to the disqualification of both their drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, from the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday, in what was a disastrous close to the weekend for the Scuderia and a hugely disappointing outcome for Hamilton in only his second race for the team.

Leclerc and Hamilton had finished fifth and sixth respectively in the race, which was won by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. However three hours after the flag, and in the wake of the usual post‑race inspection of the cars to ensure they are in compliance with regulations, Ferrari were found wanting over two clearly defined rules.

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• Australian first, with McLaren teammate Norris second
• Ferrari’s Hamilton and Leclerc disqualified after race

Now 18 years into his career and hoping to see it out with a flourish, it will not have gone unnoticed by Lewis Hamilton that while McLaren – with whom he started in Formula One all those years ago – are enjoying a breathless, heady run of form, his opening with Ferrari has been an altogether more frustrating affair. The teams’ fates in the Chinese Grand Prix could not have been in greater contrast and it is doubtful that it would give Hamilton occasion for so much as a wry smile.

In a processional race at Shanghai, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri won with a commanding drive from pole and with his teammate Lando Norris behind him they secured McLaren’s 50th one-two finish and the team’s first of the season. On this form, it will not be the last.

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• ‘People underestimated steep climb of joining new team’
• Piastri takes first pole ahead of Russell and Norris

Feisty, confident and feeling vindicated, Lewis Hamilton will, to an extent, be at ease with how he fares in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix. After his victory in the sprint race on Saturday, the seven-time champion was energised and assured he is on the right path with Ferrari and even a tough day in Shanghai will not detract from the sense he has seized the reins.

A long road lies ahead, but his condemnation of the “yapping” of criticism after a striking victory was the fighting talk of a man who feels he is just beginning to land some blows.

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Muttering in pit lane over how F1 team have found such a sweet spot between aerodynamics and tyre wear

One race into the new Formula One season and the sport has been transfixed by how smartly McLaren have emerged from the blocks. A quick car is a surprise to no one but what fascinated about Lando Norris’s and Oscar Piastri’s ride is that their single greatest advantage apparently lay not in the science of aerodynamics but rather in the tyres and the dark art of mechanical grip. In which algorithms and alchemy, McLaren appear to have struck gold.

Norris’s win at the season opener in Australia caught the eye, not only with how much pace they showed but in how they achieved it, and it has the other teams worried.

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Grand prix fans thronged into the heaving Albert Park with renewed zeal, abuzz at the prospects of local hero and title contender Oscar Piastri

As Formula One prepares to open a season the sport hopes will be a spectacular battle royale, it surely could not ask for a finer venue than Melbourne’s Albert Park to see things off in a suitably splendid fashion.

The true form for the year ahead has yet to be discerned from the opening day of practice in Australia. But with the cars fizzing with intent round the glorious circuit in the parkland in the heart of the city, it was a pleasure to welcome Australia back as the opening race of the season for the first time since the Covid pandemic brought proceedings to a desultory close here on the Friday before the race in 2020.

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Verstappen is under pressure from a revitalised Hamilton at Ferrari with McLaren’s Norris set to challenge from the off

Car MCL39 Engine Mercedes Principal Andrea Stella Debut Monaco 1966 GPs 970 Titles 9 Last season 1st. In position to build on securing the constructors’ championship in 2024, McLaren will be quick out of the blocks. The car was the standout in testing and confidence is high. Lessons were learned through questionable execution last year and they have two outstanding drivers who are both hungrily eyeing the team’s first drivers’ title since 2008. How they manage them may be key from the off.

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‘There’s magic here,’ says the F1 veteran whose mission at Scuderia is under threat from McLaren and Verstappen

In the maelstrom of the buildup to the new Formula One season, which opens in Melbourne next week, one figure stands at its heart, preternaturally calm as the crescendo builds around him. Lewis Hamilton, the sport’s most successful driver, now in a Ferrari, the sport’s most successful team, promises to make F1 in 2025 unmissable, his grand, romantic challenge playing out to the backdrop of what may be the most closely fought season in more than a decade.

Hamilton, now 40 years old and with seven titles, has nothing to prove but is set on securing the greatest achievement in his career. To return a record-breaking eighth title with Ferrari, who have not won the drivers’ title since 2007, would be a feat to rank among the greatest of them all. Watching him try will be as gripping as McLaren trying to steal his thunder.

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• Seven-time champion says winning is his ‘No 1 priority’
• Eddie Jordan and Bernie Ecclestone scornful of signing

Lewis Hamilton has delivered a stinging rebuke to criticism of his move from Mercedes to Ferrari, dismissing it as an irrelevance from what he describes as older, white men and insisting he “welcomes” the negativity.

Hamilton is making his debut with Ferrari this year and is currently taking part in pre-season testing in Bahrain, where he was quickest in the morning session. This will be the 40-year-old’s 19th season in F1 and comes after 12 years at Mercedes with whom he won six of his seven titles. Speaking in an interview for Time magazine he addressed criticism he has received from the former F1 team chief Eddie Jordan and the sport’s former chief executive Bernie Ecclestone.

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• Hamilton sets sights on record eighth world title
• ‘The passion here is like nothing you have ever seen’

Lewis Hamilton is convinced Ferrari will give him the chance to win his eighth world championship, describing his “magic” new team as having everything in place to compete.

Hamilton has been reinvigorated by his switch from Mercedes and he and his teammate Charles Leclerc drove their new challenger, the SF-25, for the first time in a shakedown run at the team’s test track at Fiorano on Wednesday. Afterwards the seven-time champion gave an unequivocal “yes” when asked if he believed he could secure a record eighth world title with the Scuderia.

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• British driver to debut with Scuderia this year
• ‘It will all depend on how well he can adapt’

Ferrari are in a strong position to enable Lewis Hamilton to fight for his eighth Formula One world championship, according to their former driver Carlos Sainz, who was replaced by the Briton for this season.

Sainz has joined Williams for 2025 after three years with Ferrari, including last season when the team finished with a very competitive car and claimed second place in the constructors’ championship.

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The Red Bull driver overcame an ‘undriveable monster', McLaren delivered and Lewis Hamilton ended win drought

With a fourth consecutive world championship, Max Verstappen deserves to be recognised as one of the greats, a place he has earned not least with this year’s title, his most hard-fought yet. After opening in a dominant Red Bull, he executed clinically to take four of the opening five races, keeping his head even as the controversy surrounding the team principal, Christian Horner, consumed Red Bull. However, McLaren’s upgrades at Miami launched a fightback from Lando Norris and after the Spanish GP with the McLaren a quicker ride, Verstappen had to buckle down and make the best of an unbalanced car that he described as an ‘undriveable monster’. He did so with the commitment and determination of an Alain Prost or Michael Schumacher. Repeatedly grinding out decent points between Spain and Brazil was vital and ultimately enough to ensure he closed it out, a champion’s performance. It was, however, one marked by an aggressive, uncompromising attitude on track that did him a disservice and for which he was penalised. That side of his character was not enhanced by his ill-tempered late-season spat with George Russell, nor the absurd dive he made on Oscar Piastri at the season finale in Abu Dhabi that meant nothing to him but could have affected McLaren’s championship challenge.

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• Mercedes team principal hails historic partnership
• Verstappen learns punishment for swearing in Singapore

Toto Wolff has bid Lewis Hamilton a heartfelt final farewell with what the Mercedes team principal called the most important message he has ever sent, as Hamilton prepares to join Ferrari next season.

Hamilton delivered a superb comeback drive at the season finale in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, after which he admitted his last race for Mercedes had been an emotional affair. The team are continuing to hold a week of celebrations for their driver and he will attend their bases in Brackley and Brixworth this week to say goodbye in person as they part ways after 12 years of unprecedented success.

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• Hamilton admits ‘turbulent year’ was a challenging one
• Lando Norris feels ‘incredibly proud’ of win for McLaren

Lewis Hamilton described his time with Mercedes as the greatest honour of his life after the seven-time champion bowed out with his final race for the team at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. After a superlative drive at the Yas Marina circuit, Hamilton also admitted that, after a difficult year, it was good to bid farewell on a high.

Hamilton drove from 16th to fourth in Abu Dhabi, another mighty performance to sit alongside what has been an unmatched partnership of success with Mercedes since he joined the team in 2013. He has taken six titles with them and 84 wins over those 12 seasons and at his last race before he joins Ferrari next year, he took a moment to contemplate it all at the close when he was given a special place to park on the start-finish straight alongside the top three, where he knelt beside his car.

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• Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri collide on first lap
• McLaren now have nine constructors’ championships

The wait has been long and ­torturous for McLaren but by the close of a victory for Lando Norris at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix it was worth it as the team celebrated their first Formula One constructors’ championship for 26 years – opening perhaps a new era for the team, just as another came to an end for Lewis Hamilton.

The emotional import of the moment was writ large at McLaren but no less for a visibly moved ­Hamilton, who brought his career at Mercedes to an end with an exceptional comeback drive from 16th to fourth, bowing out with the same determined panache that has secured him unprecedented success with the team.

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• Hamilton 18th in qualifying thanks to dislodged bollard
• Mercedes’ Toto Wolff apologises for ‘idiotic mistake’

Bidding farewell with a flourish was the optimistic hope for Lewis Hamilton as he entered his final meeting with Mercedes at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but even fortune, it seems, would not favour the British driver for his swansong where he finished 18th in qualifying.

His final hot lap was scuppered by the poorest of luck as he picked up a stray bollard dislodged by Kevin Magnussen, condemning his finale to probably be something of a slog from the lower reaches of the grid.

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