Last Updated on August 19 2025, 11:52 am
Once King of the world of Formula One, Lewis Hamilton’s fall from grace has been meteoric. Having fought out a last lap decider which wold have crowned him the greatest F1 driver with the most championships of all time, Hamilton returned in 2022 a shadow of his former self.
In the four seasons since his dramatic defeat by Max Verstappen in Abu Dhabi, Lewis has added just two Grand Prix wins to his previous collection of 103 Grand Prix victories and one of those was by default as his team mate was disqualified for technical infringements in Belgium last seasons.
His move to Ferrari was intended to put three years of abject misery behind him, yet Hamilton is suffering the worst season of his career so far. Hamilton has yet to participate in the champagne celebrations this year, although team mate Charles Leclerc now has five podiums to his name. The seven times champion is now just five race weekends from earning a most unwanted Ferrari record where he would become the Ferrari driver who goes the longest since his arrival in Maranello without finishing a Grand Prix on the podium.
Wolff says “driving style” is Hamilotn’s problem
Having finished behind his team mate on twelve of the fourteen Sunday’s competition this season, Hamilton is also 10-4 behind Leclerc in qualifying too. His despair appeared to come to breaking point last time out in Hungary where he described himself as “useless” even suggesting Ferrari “probably need to change driver.”
When asked about his former star driver’s dramatic loss of form, Toto Wolff speculated his difficulties may be related to the way he drives. “In the same way that Mercedes underperformed with these ground-effect cars, maybe it [affects] him too. Maybe it is linked to driving style,” Wolff said at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Hamilton has struggled more than many other F1 drivers with the lack of ‘rear end feel’ the ground effect cars have brought but his new boss Fred Vasseur now disagrees with the Mercedes’ team boss in an interview with Germany’s ‘Auto Motor und Sport.’ “I don’t think so,” he replies to Wolff’s suggestion. “If we had had bouncing, maybe. But even though we are always on the verge of bouncing, we now have it under control to some extent.”
Ferrari boss disagrees with Wolff
Vasseur believes Hamilton’s issues stem more from adaptation than from any mismatch with car philosophy. After 18 years within English teams—first McLaren, then Mercedes—Hamilton’s shift to Maranello was underestimated by both sides. “Looking back, I have to admit that we, by which I mean Lewis and I, underestimated the move to a different environment,” Vasseur said. “It’s a bigger difference between Ferrari and Mercedes than between Mercedes and McLaren. When Lewis arrived at Ferrari, we naively thought he would have everything under control.”
By way of contrast the Ferrari boss cites Carlos Sainz, who is now with his fifth team in just over a decade of F1 racing. However, unaccustomed to such change, Vasseur believes Hamilton took a number of race weekends before beginning to feel comfortable. “Since the Canadian GP, he has actually been on course,” Vasseur argued, pointing out that fine margins had exaggerated the gap between Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in qualifying. “In Budapest, he was ahead of Charles in Q1 and was only a tenth slower in Q2. He was 15 thousandths short of progressing. In the end, one is first and the other twelfth. Of course, that looks stupid. But it didn’t take much for us to finish eleventh and twelfth with our two drivers.”
On paper, the gap remains minimal with Hamilton just one position behind Leclerc in the driver standings. Yet the 42 point deficit to his team mate is relatively large, but somewhat masked by the big differences between the Mercedes pair which includes a rookie and the Red Bull driver lineup which sees Yuki Tsunoda with just seven points since his promotion to the Milan Keynes team.
Hamilton had more “bad luck”
Vasseur believes Hamilton has had more than his fair share of bad luck along the way and that the numbers disguise the reality of circumstance, near misses, and a driver still settling into life under the weight of Ferrari’s expectations. “Often it is the circumstances, and Lewis has been on the unfortunate side more often recently,” he said.
Here the Judge notes that Toto Wolff’s comments were not made in malice, but with the gentle undertone of a man still missing his star pupil. To say Hamilton’s style no longer fits the machinery is a neat theory—tidy, convenient, and flattering to Mercedes’ engineering struggles. But Vasseur, ever the pragmatist, is not buying it. For him, the truth is simpler: Hamilton underestimated Ferrari, and Ferrari underestimated Hamilton’s need to adjust.
Eighteen years in the Mercedes’ camp left the seven-time champion ill-prepared for the unique politics and peculiarities of Maranello. Unlike Sainz, who collects team changes like frequent-flyer miles, Hamilton has been a man of continuity. To expect him to walk into Ferrari and instantly dominate was, as Vasseur admits, “naïve.”
Verstappen now explains his silence as Mercedes rumours grew
Yet the stats don’t lie
Whilst at times the margins have been razor thin between Hamilton finding success and having a shocker of a race weekend, the reality is the statistics don’t lie and Leclerc is consistently ahead of his new team mate and has chalked up five podiums in a less competitive SF-25 car than last season.
For now Hamilton has time on his hands to find what he needs, but Ferrari history is rarely kind to those who ask for patience. Lewis has a rock solid contract for 2026 and there are those in the Ferrari group who believe their F1 organisation needs a wake up call. Hamilton is duly obliging by providing documentation based on his Mercedes experience, which calls on the Scueria engineers to address fundamental issues with his car and the power unit.
Of course this is not always the best way to make friends and influence people by telling them their hard work is mostly for naught and that another group of grease monkeys are building better cars than the great Ferrari.
F1: The automakers R&D workshop
The expected flood of auto manufacturers coming into Formula One as the FIA once hoped for never quite materialised. Porsche fell out with prospective partners Red Bull, who have now gone it alone with some assistance from Ford to build their own next generation of F1§ power unit.
Whilst Audi did finally commit to joining the sport, the iconic Renault F1 power will disappear for now and their Alpine F1 team will buy Mercedes powertrains for the foreseeable future. So at best that’s a net gain of one manufacturer. By allowing the likes of Mercedes, Audi and Honda significant control over the design of the new era of F1 power, the FIA ceded its traditional role as the strategic guide to F1’s future. But a back lash is already underway.
The all new heavier V6 turbo hybrid powertrains coming in 2026 have already been criticised for being way too complex and ridiculously expensive when compared to other global racing series. Since the introduction of there hybrid era in 2014, F1 has become the R&D workshop for certain global auto manufacturers to experiment their future concepts on… 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.
