{"id":144623,"date":"2025-05-30T17:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T17:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/144623\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T17:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T17:09:08","slug":"nico-rosbergs-alarming-ferrari-verdict-after-spain-f1-practice-so-much-of-a-handful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/144623\/","title":{"rendered":"Nico Rosberg\u2019s alarming Ferrari verdict after Spain F1 practice: \u201cSo much of a handful\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Nico Rosberg delivered a concerning assessment of Ferrari\u2019s on-track performance following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">F1<\/a> practice at the Spanish Grand Prix, describing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/9\/lewis-hamilton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lewis Hamilton<\/a>\u2019s car as a \u201chandful\u201d.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">It was a tough day for Ferrari at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in practice.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/889402\/charles-leclerc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Charles Leclerc<\/a> was the highest-placed Ferrari driver in FP2, setting the fifth-fastest time of the session.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">However, Leclerc was 0.5s off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/1014409\/oscar-piastri\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oscar Piastri<\/a>\u2019s top time.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Hamilton was a couple of tenths slower than his teammate, ending up 11th in the final classification.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ferrari hoped that the flexi wing clampdown would result in an upturn in performance, potentially impacting their rivals.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">However, it seems they\u2019re back to where they were pre-Monaco in terms of the pecking order, trailing the top three teams.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Rosberg, who was trackside for Sky Sports F1 in FP2, noted how difficult the Ferrari looked to drive in the hands of both Hamilton and Leclerc.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAll in all, it\u2019s difficult. Difficult from his own performance and difficult even more so from the car\u2019s performance because the car is just nowhere near where they were hoping to be,\u201d Rosberg explained.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt\u2019s really quite a difficult car. Looking at Imola, the last normal track, they weren\u2019t even able to get in the top 10. Out there today, it looks so much of a handful to get that car to go around those corners.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSnapping so much, understeer, there was everything there. So I think it\u2019s been a difficult start to the season for Lewis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rosberg assesses Hamilton\u2019s Ferrari form<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While Ferrari\u2019s form has been underwhelming in F1 2025, Hamilton has struggled to outperform Leclerc.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Other than during the sprint part of the China weekend, Leclerc has kept Hamilton at arm\u2019s length.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Rosberg sees Hamilton\u2019s performances as a \u201ccontinuation of his form from last year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt\u2019s also been a continuation of his form from last year,\u201d he added. \u201cLast year was the first year ever in his career that we\u2019ve seen a dip in form across a whole season with his teammate beating him, George Russell.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt\u2019s gone into this year with Charles Leclerc taking the position as George Russell had last year. It\u2019s not such a comfortable position to be in for him this year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nico Rosberg delivered a concerning assessment of Ferrari\u2019s on-track performance following F1 practice at the Spanish Grand Prix,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,4199,997,998,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-144623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-ferrari","12":"tag-lewis-hamilton","13":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114597892246401825","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}