Second row for Hamilton
There Ferrari he confirmed himself in fourth place in the second Qualifying of 2026 even if in this case it was a Sprint session. If in Australia it was Isack Hadjar who preceded Charles Leclerc behind the elusive Mercedes, today it was Lando Norris who outwitted Lewis Hamilton by a few thousandths. Leclerc, however, finished sixth also behind Oscar Piastri.
The Reds ran with the rear wing in Free Practice Macarenabut then in the Sprint Qualifying this wing was not used. Hamilton had a spin during Free Practice and after that episode Leclerc received instructions via radio to correct the use of this wing which still has a little delay in closing compared to the front wing, a delay which creates some imbalances in the braking phase.
“We used free practice to carry out some reliability tests and then decided not to use it. We will make the final decision after accumulating some mileage”said the Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur to the microphones of Sky Sports. “We’ll try to start well to be as close as possible to the Mercedes and then we’ll see what we can do from there,” added Vasseur regarding the Sprint Qualifying verdict. Ferrari has taken a small step forward in terms of the gap with Mercedes, which has gone from eight to six tenths in the Australia-China comparison.
