Lewis Hamilton lamented the "worst" cars, but Mercedes said his driving style wasn't suited to the ground-effect cars.

With F1’s current regulations now in their fourth year, the performance gaps that gave front-runners comfortable advantages are shrinking fast. Teams that were once struggling to keep pace have had enough time with these cars to catch up on the learning curve. (See: Ferrari and McLaren’s surge last year .)

Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari have been backed to succeed by a former Scuderia F1 driver. Gerhard Berger says he would put his money on Ferrari winning at least one world championship title in F1 2025.