FERRARI chief Fred Vasseur appears to have leaked the secret tactic Lewis Hamilton used to win the Chinese Grand Prix Sprint race.
Hamilton won his first race for Ferrari after becoming the first driver over the age of 40 to claim pole in a Formula One race since Nigel Mansell in 1994.
Lewis Hamilton won his first Ferrari race at the Chinese Grand Prix Sprint race[/caption]
Hamilton an incredible tactic to help him overcome rival Max Verstappen[/caption]
Ferrari chief Fred Vasseur has revealed what tactic Hamilton used to win the race[/caption]
The Brit shared the front row with Max Verstappen at the Shanghai circuit and managed to keep his old rival at bay going into Turn 1 before controlling the race from there.
Hamilton had to bide his time to truly make out at advantage over the Dutchman, who remained just out of striking distance behind him.
After a while, Hamilton then began to pull away from Verstappen, who was eventually overtaken by McLaren‘s Oscar Piastri.
The seven-time world champion finished more than six seconds ahead of the second-place Aussie with Verstappen in third.
Hamilton was praised by engineer Riccardo Adami for a “masterclass in tyre management“.
But Scuderia team principal Vasseur has revealed how Hamilton masterminded his Shanghai Sprint race win.
He explained how Hamilton intentionally dropped back in front of Verstappen to ensure the Red Bull driver was forced to drive through “dirty air” which forced him to burn through his tyres quicker.
Vasseur told Canal+: “Hamilton was under control. Starting in front helps. We must not try to draw too many conclusions from this race – because it is too early.
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“I don’t want to say that Lewis had an easy race, but he was in control from the beginning. At a certain point it allowed Verstappen to come back a little, but also causing him to damage his tyres.
“He had clean air throughout the race, was able to push towards the end and finished the race with a 7-second lead over Piastri.”
He added: “If you’re second at the start, it becomes more difficult, because you look dirty, you have to damage your tyres and when you approach someone else, if you can’t overcome it, then you have problems.
“Lewis managed the race well: he let Verstappen take it back and damaged the tyres at that stage, while he had a bit of a reserve in his pocket.”
Hamilton hit back at his “yapping critics” following his maiden Ferrari win, before landing P5 in qualifying for Sunday’s feature race.
His former engineer, Peter Bonnington, had an awkward gaffe on the team radio to Kimi Antonelli as he accidentally said: “Copy that, Lewis,” before correcting himself to say: “Copy that, Kimi.”
Piastri, who was second in the Sprint, claimed pole position for tomorrow’s race and beat Hamilton’s record-breaking lap set during Sprint qualifying with a time of 1:30.641.
What is ‘dirty air’ and how does it affect tyres?
What is dirty air?
In F1, dirty air is a term used to describe the turbulent air left behind by a racing car as it moves forward at high speed and disrupting airflow.
Following a car behind on a straight creates a slipstream because there is less air resistance for the car immediately behind, allowing an F1 cars aerodynamic performance to be maximised.
However, this phenomenon is reversed going into corners as the car behind has to push through the disrupted air flow left by the car in front, creating less downforce and therefore less grip.
Why does this damage tyres?
Less downforce for the cars aerodynamic performance means the tyres are being made to work harder to turn the car at the high speeds F1 machines move at.
With the tyres working harder, this puts more strain on them and therefore uses up the grip on the tyres far quicker than it would in clean air.
This wear on the tyres and disruption of the airflow can make it very difficult for an F1 car to overtake.
The 2026 car regulations for F1 have heavily tried to lower the impact dirty air can have on performance to allow for more competitive racing.
