As the F1 circus descended on the most historic of all the race circuits on the calendar, Lewis Hamilton’s hopes of winning at his home Grand Prix took a turn for the better. The seven times world champion has been forced to play second fiddle to his team mate so far this season, as Charlie’s Leclerc has made a better job of handling the difficult SF-25.
Hamilton’s move to Ferrari was sprinkled with marketing fairy dust which blurred the three year failure that were his final years with the Mercedes AMG F1 team. Lewis was beaten by his team mate George Russell in two of their three years racing together and his final championship season with the Brackley based team saw him crushed by his team mate in both qualifying and classified race positions.
“A reset” was the hope for the Hamilton camp as he headed for Italy, but did he underestimate the challenge of joining a new team late in his racing career? Hamilton had driven for just two teams in his eighteen year F1 career and on the whole was the deemed the number one driver despite tough challenges from team mates Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton lack of experience in switching F1 teams
Switching F1 teams is something Carlos Sainz knows plenty about, as he detailed earlier this year in an interview with Mundo Deportivo. “I’ve had to suffer through changing teams five times, and it’s something that was practically unspoken about before, the adaptation process. The important thing is to get there. The risk is never fully adapting to that team or car, and so far I’m lucky to say that I’ve always ended up adapting to each team.”
It could be Lewis Hamilton underestimated this process and joining Ferrari alongside their fast and favoured son Charles Leclerc, was never going to be a stroll in the park. With eleven of the twenty four rounds complete, Hamilton is yet to score a podium on Sunday whilst his Monegasque team mate has four to his name and Charles has finished ahead of Lewis in ten of the eleven Grand Prix.
In the most recent Grand Prix in Canada and Austria, Hamilton has demonstrated he is getting closer to Leclerc, qualifying ahead of him in Canada and finishing less than a tenth behind the sister Ferrari in Austria. Speaking to assembled media at Silverstone, Lewis now reveals his learning curve since joining Ferrari, but makes a strange admission as to why his tutelage has taken so long.
“This year, with this car, obviously we have a lot of different tools and ways in which we can set the car up,” he admitted. “Obviously Charles has been here for a long time, and he’s been a part of evolving and developing this car. He’s very accustomed to it. So they’ve found and he has found one way in which the car works. And I tried all the other directions that should work, but they just don’t, just for whatever reasons.
Hamilton finally uses Leclerc’s setup
“I’ve slowly migrated to the place where Charles runs the car. And last week was the closest that I’ve been and our pace was the closest it’s ever been.” Whether it has been Hamilton adapting his driving style or simply that Leclerc knows how to set up this generation of Ferrari F1 cars, Lewis is clearly encouraged. But as Jenson Button suggested on Sky F1 commentary this weekend, it was a strange decision from Lewis not to start his Ferrari career with similar car set ups as his more experienced Ferrari driver team mate.
Hamilton is hoping to influence the direction of Ferrari’s 2026 car and is working closely with the team’s head of chassis design Loic Serra. “It’s a tough balance to drive and it’s not a comfortable one,” said Hamilton of the SF-25. “It’s not one that I want to have in future. So I’m working with Loic and with all the guys in the factory to make sure that the next car will have, naturally, some of my DNA in it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some of the characteristics that I’m hoping to have in next year.”
Lewis was quickest in the opening practice session at the British Grand Prix and he revealed his latest setup change is in conjunction with Ferrari bringing a new floor to the SF-25 last time out in Austria. Hamilton. “We did take a step and we’re really hopeful that that continues,” he said. “But I think we still need to try and extract more from this car.
Hamilton threatens to ignore Ferrari strategy calls
Lewis in the mix for Silverstone pole
“There’s still a few teething problems that we’re trying to work through, some short-term and some long-term. So we’re trying to make the best of what we have,” said the seven times world champion. Lewis was on a purple lap in practice three, but was denied the opportunity to top the tine sheets as Gabriel Bortoleto’s Sauber suffered broken suspension at the Chapel turn bringing out the red flag with just a minute to go.
Hamilton has won in Silverstone a record ten times, more than any other driver at any F1 circuit and the Ferrari looks to be in the mix to claim pole position this afternoon. Charles Leclerc topped the time sheets in the final session before qualifying, but the top four which included Verstappen and the McLaren pair separated by just a tenth of a second, with favourite Lando Norris in fourth.
The much criticised Yuki Tsunoda was a remarkable P5 in the final practice session, although he was more than half a second off the pace of the leaders. Despite the cooler conditions, the capricious Mercedes W16 was only able to manage P8 in the hands of George Russell, while Kimi Antonelli was down in P14 almost a second of the pace of Leclerc.
Brundle critical of Wolff’s “unfair” behaviour
Formula One’s paddock elder statesman now claims that the Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is treating George Russell unfairly. The British driver who joined Mercedes the year after the calamitous end to Hamilton’s attempt at a record eight F1 drivers’ title, is out of contract with the silver arrows team come the end of this year.
During their three seasons together at Mercedes, Russell comprehensively beat his champion team mate 2-1 and in their final year together the young gun destroyed Hamilton in Saturday qualifying 18-6 and in the races on Sunday the tally was 15-8 against Lewis.
Now having inherited the mantle of team leader for the Brackley based team, Russell is once again delivering big time for Mercedes. He has scored almost three quarters of the team’s points this season to date while his talented rookie team mate is struggling to find his feet….. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
