Ferrari face 'painful reading' after double disqualification horror-show

Martin Brundle has no doubt Ferrari will feel the 'pain' from the Italian media following its double disqualification nightmare at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Following a day of triumph with Lewis Hamilton's victory in the sprint - both his and the Scuderia's first in 19 attempts since the one-third distance race was introduced in 2021 - unmitigated disaster followed when both he and team-mate Charles Leclerc were disqualified from the grand prix for separate technical infringements.

It was the first time in Ferrari's 75-year F1 history - 1102 grands prix - it had both its drivers disqualified.

Former F1 driver and Sky Sports expert analyst Brundle said the DSQs -including that of Alpine's Pierre Gasly - were a "sting in the tail" to the weekend.

"Leclerc and Gasly were thrown out due to being marginally underweight," wrote Brundle, in his post-race analysis.

"Rather like we saw last year in Spa with George Russell, a long run on one set of tyres uses up a few kilos of tyre tread. Also, the race pace was strong and there were no safety cars, and so fuel usage was high, consuming more mass.

"Leclerc's broken front wing was allowed to be replaced, but he was still underweight. Whichever way you cut it, that's a miscalculation by the team to not leave enough margin for all circumstances.

"Hamilton's car was thrown out for running too close to the ground and overly wearing away the legality skid block underneath by half a millimetre.

"This rule is in place to stop teams running these ground-effect aero cars too low to gain performance but then trashing super expensive floors every day.

"Especially in the Italian media, it will be painful reading for Ferrari this week despite the sprint victory."

Hamilton provides 'antidote'

Brundle at least feels Hamilton's victory in the sprint was a performance of old from the seven-time F1 champion.

After securing pole position, Hamilton was rarely troubled over the 19-lap race to finally end Ferrari's drought in the additional weekend event.

"The sprint was vintage Hamilton controlling the race from pole position, managing his tyre graining out front better than others, and tucking away, very early doors, his first victory for Ferrari," said Brundle.

"After the previous weekend in Melbourne, which he called "disastrous", this was the perfect antidote, and remarkably the first time either he or Ferrari had won a sprint."