Haas embarrassed themselves in Australia. Their car showed a fundamental weakness in high-speed corners that exposed them as the slowest car by far. After punching above their weight in 2024, it appeared it would be a while before they were fighting for points in 2025. Whilst the Shanghai circuit doesn’t possess the high-speed turns of Melbourne, I still expected the team’s weekend to be mediocre at best. But I was wrong.

Haas were not the fastest midfield team during qualifying at Shanghai. That honour went to the Racing Bulls (who qualified in seventh and ninth), with the Williams of Albon (in tenth) also appearing slightly quicker than the Haas. Esteban Ocon qualified in eleventh, but cleared the Williams to run behind the Racing Bulls during the opening stint. After the pit stops, Esteban found himself ahead of the Racing Bull of Isack Hadjar and behind the Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, but made a fantastic move on the grass to jump past the Mercedes car, where he would remain until the end of the race. Esteban was running in a net eighth behind Yuki Tsunoda, but that became a finishing position of seventh when Racing Bulls made the mistake of pitting their cars twice. Capping off Haas’ fantastic day was Oliver Bearman’s performance. He had not qualified as well as Ocon, which led Haas to elect to place him on an alternate hard-to-medium strategy. This would give Ollie fresher tyres than the cars ahead late on in the race, yet he still had to make moves on a track where it proved difficult to overtake. Ollie duly delivered, making decisive moves at the hairpin on car after car, whilst saying ‘ciao’ on the radio to his competitors. Ollie’s overtaking earned him a tenth place and another valuable point for the team.

Ferrari also had a difficult time in Australia, suffering a weekend full of bad pace and poor strategic calls.[1] Initially, their weekend in China looked to be heading in a positive direction. In the short sprint race, Lewis Hamilton had taken pole position and managed his tyres perfectly to win. Yet, by Saturday’s qualifying session things were less positive. The McLarens showed their pace after failing to maximise in the sprint, George Russell put in a fantastic lap to take second place and Max Verstappen managed a slightly faster lap than the Ferraris as well. This left the Ferrari drivers in fifth and sixth on the grid. In the race, they were not very impressive. Whilst clearing Verstappen at the start, both lacked race pace, Lewis due to a poor setup and Charles due to losing his front wing endplate after contact with his teammate. Charles was not able to overtake George Russell for a podium, likely due to the downforce loss he suffered from his damage. Furthermore, by the end of the race, Max had found some pace and made his way past the Ferrari cars. Thus, they disappointingly finished in fifth and sixth. At least, they finished there initially.

After the race, both Ferraris were disqualified, for two separate technical infringements. Charles’ car was found to be underweight and Lewis’ was found to have excessive plank wear. The team blamed the switch to a one-stop strategy for Charles’ disqualification, an explanation that made little sense, as many other teams switched strategies whilst avoiding disqualification. Additionally, Charles’ car was a whole kilogram underweight, something that seems unlikely to be due to tyre wear alone. Fundamentally, the team failed in its calculations. Ferrari can provide any excuse or explanation, but their main rivals did not make the mistake that they made. Ferrari’s own blunders caused this disaster, blunders that are losing the team valuable points in the championship.

So, Ferrari are really disappointing their fans in 2025. Whilst Haas have relived theirs. Furthermore, the Ferrari disqualifications had the effect of making Haas’ day even better, as it led them to be classified in fifth and eighth. This is actually the Haas team’s second-best result in their history, only behind the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix. And for the second week in a row, the highest Ferrari-powered driver in the championship is not a Ferrari driver, as that honour now belongs to Esteban Ocon. Which is incredibly embarrassing for Ferrari. It appears that after all the hype surrounding Lewis Hamilton’s move to the team, their season is slowly unravelling.

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[1] Which I discussed here: https://ryansf1blog.co.uk/2025/03/19/a-mighty-mclaren-vs-a-flawed-ferrari/