Lewis Hamilton reveals Ferrari issue caused loss of downforce in Spain F1 practice

Lewis Hamilton hinted that an issue with his Ferrari F1 car was causing him to lose downforce during Friday practice at the Spanish Grand Prix.

After a positive FP1 session, Hamilton struggled for pace in the more representative second session.

Hamilton ended second practice in 11th place, just under eight tenths away from Oscar Piastri’s time.

The seven-time world champion has historically excelled at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona.

Hamilton was unbeaten in Spain between 2017 and 2021.

Even during his final years with Mercedes, Hamilton secured podium finishes in 2023 and 2024.

Reflecting on Friday practice at the Spanish GP, Hamilton described it as “not a good day.”

“Not fun. It’s a beautiful place. The weather has been amazing but no. Not a good day,” Hamilton said.

“I wouldn’t say I am motivating the team at the moment. Just keep your head down, keep working away. You can’t give up. You keep going, keep pushing. Keep trying to focus on solving the issues which we will try to do.

“You arrive on a Friday and you’re hoping for a good day, and it doesn’t go well but then you have a weekend in Monaco where all of a sudden the car feels great. I thought the car was going to be good today but it wasn’t too bad in P1. P2 was quite a lot worse. 

“Naturally that’s frustrating for everyone. We had some problem which meant we were losing some downforce, so hopefully with that fix for tomorrow we’ll be in a better place.”

Vasseur concedes Ferrari struggled in FP2

Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc fared better, setting the fifth-quickest time in FP2.

However, he was over 0.5s off Piastri.

Reflecting on Ferrari’s Friday, team boss Fred Vasseur said: “I think we had a very good pace this morning. We struggled a bit more in the afternoon,” he added. “I think we had a decent lap with Charles before the mistake on [Turn] 7, he was in advance on P1.

“But the target is to put it up together, not to do some good corners only. And then we struggled a bit more at the beginning of each stint on the long stint.

“I think it was true for us, but true for a couple of other cars. The track was very dirty with a lot of marbles as soon as we were out of the line. It was quite difficult to recover.

“Overall, it was a long day, we collected also good information. It was the first time that we were running the front wing. I think we’ll have a lot of work tonight.”