Ferrari’s first combined non-score in a Formula 1 sprint race since the 2021 Italian Grand Prix laid bare what Lewis Hamilton described as a “fight like you couldn’t believe” for its drivers in trying to tame their tricky car.
Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc had been struggling for pace already in Qatar's sprint qualifying, with Hamilton’s 18th grid slot triggering a call to completely revamp his set-up and start from the pitlane.
But even that did not appear to lift fortunes, as he made barely any progress to come home 17th. Team-mate Leclerc had an equally miserable time as a spate of wild moments saw him drift back from ninth on the grid to finish 13th.
The Qatar result was the first time since Monza 2021, when sprint points were only awarded for the top three, that the Prancing Horse cars had not added to their tally in a Saturday race.
It was also the first time since the 2021 French Grand Prix that both cars had been classified in the results without scoring.
Neither driver had any explanation for what had gone wrong, with Hamilton offering some fascinating insight into the scale of the problems that the pair of them were facing with their car.
“We started from the pitlane, because we wanted to explore and make some changes,” he told Sky.
“They had some things they found on the simulator last night, so we implemented those changes. And yeah, the car was really in the wrong direction and very, very difficult for whatever reason clearly, for both of us.
“We just don't have any stability. So when I say that, the rear end is not planted. It's sliding, snapping a lot.
"Then we have bouncing. So when you're going into corners, like Turn 10, the thing starts bouncing. We have a lot of mid-corner understeer.
"Then you apply the steering, and then it snaps and you try and catch it. So it's different between low-, medium- and high[-speed]. And it's a fight like you couldn't believe.”
Hamilton told Spanish broadcaster DAZN that things looked so difficult that it came as a surprise to Alpine driver Pierre Gasly, who followed him for much of the sprint.
"Even Pierre came up to me afterwards, he was like 'yo... it looks so bad'! I was like 'yeah, yeah... no sh- Sherlock.' "
From Leclerc’s perspective, a scrappy opening lap where he ran wide and lost positions set the tone for more dramas throughout the race.
“Just incredibly difficult to drive the car,” he said. “I don't have any explanations for now.
"I thought there was damage on the car - we saw something, but it was after the first few laps, where[as] the problem was mostly in the first lap. So we'll analyse that, but it felt horrible.”
Even though parc ferme conditions meant that settings were identical to qualifying, Leclerc said things felt so much worse today compared to yesterday.
“It definitely did [feel worse],” he told Sky. “I have no idea how that happened from qualifying to today, the feeling has changed completely to yesterday.
“I don't really know from where it's coming from…I kind of agree with Lewis that today was extremely difficult, to not say worse than that.
“The first lap I was struggling to keep the car on track. I lost four or five positions, and then still lots of mistakes, because it was extremely difficult to drive. So I don't quite understand what happened there.”
Leclerc said the only hope was to “change the car” massively for the rest of the Qatar GP weekend.
