It may not have been a full Grand Prix, but the seven-time champion’s pole and impressive win in the 19-lap race at the Shanghai International Circuit appeared significant at the time, given it came at the start of just his second race weekend with the team and after what had been a tricky debut in Australia.
Ferrari have not hit the same heights in the five full-length races this season, with Hamilton’s struggles in the SF-25 particularly pronounced, although Charles Leclerc’s run to their first Grand Prix podium of the year last time out in Saudi Arabia did offer more promise.
The issue for Ferrari, who already brought some significant upgrades to round four in Bahrain, is that the further behind they fall, the less justifiable it will become to pour resource into what is fast becoming a failure of a campaign, ahead of the introduction of radical new regulations for the 2026 season.
A weekend off either side of the Miami Grand Prix is giving them a chance to regather, but then a European triple-header kicks off a run of six races in eight weeks that will take us to the halfway point of the season.
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Starting at the Miami International Autodrome as the sixth round of the season plunges straight into competitive action with Sprint Qualifying on Friday night, Ferrari desperately need a breakthrough.
Ferrari still behind but did Saudi offer hope?
Ferrari head to Miami still behind their leading rivals in fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, although closer to third-placed Red Bull and second-placed Mercedes than they were after marginally outscoring both in each of the last two races in the Middle East.
The 18 points they lost when both their cars were disqualified from the Chinese GP would have turned an 11-point deficit on Red Bull – for who Max Verstappen has scored all but two of their 89 points – into a seven-point advantage.
But the bigger concern for the Scuderia is that already a mammoth 110 points ahead of them are McLaren, the team they finished just 14 points behind in a late run at the constructors’ title at the end of last season and had aspirations of beating this time around.
There has been plenty of speculation about what has caused Ferrari to be off the pace in the early goings but after Leclerc’s podium in Jeddah, team boss Frederic Vasseur maintained that the “potential” to compete with the leaders exists.
“The most critical for us is the difference between qualifying pace and race pace,” Vasseur said after the race.
“I think the race… the second stint was very strong. I think we were faster than [Oscar] Piastri and Verstappen in the last 35 or 40 laps of the race.
“We have to put our focus on this to be much more consistent all over the weekend, but I think we can take [Saudi Arabia] as a positive because we just stepped forward at least in the race pace. It was very strong and I think that the potential is there, but we just have to do a better job all over again.”