Lewis Hamilton makes Ferrari demand to reduce F1 deficit to Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari “really has to push so hard back in Maranello” to improve its power deficit to Mercedes, following sprint qualifying at the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix.

Mercedes once again took command on Friday in China, as George Russell led a team 1-2 in sprint qualifying.

The next-best non-Mercedes works car was McLaren’s Lando Norris in third, albeit over six tenths off the pace.

Lewis Hamilton led the Ferrari charge in fourth, just 0.020s further back from the Mercedes-powered McLaren.

Though he praised the job his team did, noting that the Ferrari “can compete” with the Mercedes through the corners, he urged the Italian squad to work harder to find power gains.

“Yeah, really pleased with the session,” he told Sky F1.

“My team did a really great job. My engineers did a fantastic job to turn the car around, because in P1 it was a tricky session with that spin.

“The car generally felt great. It’s just I think we’re losing on the straights - it’s a lot of time to be losing.

“So, yeah, we have a lot of work to do. We really have to push so hard back in Maranello to improve on power.

“It’s something that we were conscious of last year, we thought Mercedes started earlier than us or the rest, which they did last time as well [in 2014].

“So, they’ve done a fantastic job.

“We’ve got to step up and push to be able to close that gap.

“I think car-wise, the car feels great and I think we can compete with them through corners. But when you’re down on power, it’s just the way it is.”

Ferrari “rushed” debut of ‘Macarena’ wing

Ferrari announced prior to the sprint qualifying session on Friday that it was removing its ‘Macarena’ rear wing following its race weekend debut in FP1.

Hamilton doesn’t know why the team reverted to the older spec, though Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz suggested it was due to reliability concerns.

Commenting on the unique wing, Hamilton admits Ferrari wasn’t meant to debut it until at least the Middle East races, which are now in doubt of being run due to the Iran war.

“I don’t really know why we went back on it,” he said.

“We rushed it to get it here. It was not supposed to be on the car until race four or five, or something like that.

“So, they did a great job to rush it here. We only had two of them.

“Maybe it was a little bit premature, so we took it off. The car was still great, and we’ll work to try to bring it back when it’s ready.”