'Tough day with strange situations," Vasseur reflects on Ferrari's race in Shanghai

Following a strong showing in Friday's qualifying and in Saturday's sprint race, Ferrari endured a horrendous Sunday at the Chinese Grand Prix which prompted the Scuderia's team boss Fred Vasseur to claim that his team will need to understand the swing in performance.

Following a very difficult debut race weekend in Melbourne, Lewis Hamilton displayed a much improved pace at the Chinese Grand Prix. The seven-time F1 champion looked strong from the first laps in the sole practice session, and he shocked his rivals by securing the pole position for the Shanghai F1 Sprint with a brilliant lap.

The British driver then went on to control the 19-lap sprint race to take a dominant maiden victory with the Scuderia. However, he slightly struggled for pace in the main qualifying session, ending up only fifth for the grand prix itself.

Although he took a sensational start on Sunday, he made contact with his team-mate Charles Leclerc. The pair went into Turn 2 on Lap 1 when Hamilton cut back to the racing line, clipping Leclerc’s front wing. As a result of the incident, the Monegasque picked up some damage to his front wing.

Ferrari suggested that the damage led to an aerodynamic loss of 20 to 30 points, which normally required a change, particularly on a track where front-end grip is at a premium due to the long-radius corners. However, Ferrari elected not to change the front wing as it would have sent the Monegasque into heavy traffic.

Despite the severe damage, Leclerc was the faster of the duo which prompted Ferrari to ask its drivers to swap positions. Hamilton then came under pressure from reigning champion Max Verstappen, which meant that the British driver elected to pitted for fresh rubber, opting for a two-stop strategy which turned out to be the slower strategy.

In the end, Leclerc and Hamilton crossed the finish line fifth and sixth respectively, but both cars were subsequently disqualified post-race as the Monegasque's SF-25 was found to be below the minimum weight, while Hamilton's was for a plank infringement.

Ferrari's team boss Fred Vasseur has revealed that the Scuderia is currently struggling to explain why Hamilton lost his tremendous speed from the 19-lap sprint race.

"It was tough today with strange situations. On one side of the garage there was the damage to the front wing for Charles and on the other side it was actually more difficult for Lewis, after yesterday when his tyre management was excellent, while today he struggled more.

"For him, the two-stop was definitely the right choice as tyre degradation was quite significant and if the others had to pit it would have made sense. Now we will have to look into it, to understand why we struggled more than expected."

As for Leclerc, Vasseur took some positives from the Monegasque's race pace which was relatively competitive considering the damage he picked up as a result of his contact with Hamilton.

"Tyre management was difficult for everyone with tyres struggling and then coming back. It’s hard to read but we can take some positives, such as Charles’ very good pace despite the damage to his front wing. In these conditions we finished 20 seconds behind McLaren and ten behind Mercedes.

"We just need to do a better job to make sure we always exploit the car’s potential and we will focus on this immediately," concluded the Frenchman.