Lewis Hamilton decided to pack his bags and leave Mercedes in search of a brighter future in Maranello. Yet the dream of becoming a Ferrari driver has become a nightmare for the seven times champion who is having his worst ever season since joining the sport in 2007.
Whilst much has been written about the British drivers decline due to his age, the weekend in Monza at least offered him morals of encouragement. He qualified just over a tenth behind his team mate and despite a five place grid drop penalty which hung over from Zandvoort, Lewis made up ground from tenth to finish the race around 12 seconds behind Leclerc in a respectable sixth.
Yet the season of relative failure has not been all due to Hamilton’s difficulties in adjusting to a new team and power unit. Ferrari are themselves in a hole despite Fred Vasseur repeatedly pointing out the team is second in the constructor’s title race.
Hamilton’s streak at risk
Last year’s car brought their drivers 22 podiums including five Grand Prix wins, whilst the SF-25 is poor by comparison propelling Charles Leclerc to the top three on just five occasions. Hamilton has failed to make the podium on Sunday in the first sixteen race weekends of the year and is soon to become the holder of an unwanted record for a Scuderia driver.
Should he fail to make the podium in either Baku or Singapore, he will have the record for the longest wait for a podium finish for any F1 driver joining Ferrari in history. This is clearly something which weighs on them boss Fred Vasseur’s mind with his bold prediction who now declares Hamilton’s streak of at least one top three finish every year will not be broken.
In terms of podium finishes, Hamilton’s worst year was his final one with Mercedes. He claimed just five podium finishes across the year, although two were indeed Grand Prix wins in Silverstone and Spa. For eighteen consecutive years Lewis has never been sent from the champagne celebrations, yet on current form Ferrari cannot promise this will not be a first.
A Monza revival
There were glimmers of a revival in Monza, as Hamilton fought his way through the field to finish just five seconds behind his old team mate George Russell. This appears enough for Vasseur to declare the shoots of destiny are showing through and its just a matter of time before Hamilton makes a top three finish.
After the race in Monza, Hamilton was asked whether he wold go up to the podium when the presentation was over to savour the carpet of red fans who lined the start/finish straight. “I don’t deserve to be on the podium today,” Lewis replied with candour although he did appear on top of the pit wall to what was by Monza standards a muted response.
Ever the optimist, Fred Vasseur believes the tide is turning. “Yeah, because he fought with Russell at Zandvoort and came from P10 to his gearbox at Monza,” adding “yes, we can expect to be on the podium.”
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Drastic change in mood
The Ferrari team principal highlighted the return from the summer break as a turning point for his latest recruit and despite ending his race in Zandvoort due to driver error, Hamilton’s mood has been much improved. At the mid-week appearance in Milan before the delirious tifosi, Vasseur described the support for Hamilton as “something mega.”
Hamilton’s struggles in 2025 have been no secret. Adapting his driving style to cope with the foibles of the SF-25 has left Lewis wrestling with discomfort, to the point where mid-season he sounded like he wanted out of Maranello.
Two early exits in qualifying — Hungary and Belgium — triggered a bout of self-flagellation. “It’s me, every time. I’m useless, absolutely useless,” he told Sky. “The team has no problems. You’ve seen the other car is on pole. They probably need to change driver.” This mentality decried the Hamilton his fans had come to known and it felt as though he’d wandered into an alternative universe where he was now Nico Hulkneberg before his podium in Hungary.
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But in Zandvoort and Monza, it seemed the fire had been rekindled. The crash in the Netherlands didn’t erase the sense of improvement. In Monza, Hamilton was content with the balance in FP1, less so with the tweaks that followed, yet still convinced that fifth was possible on Sunday. “I was 1.5 seconds behind George. We could have undercut him. We missed that opportunity,” he sighed.
Nevertheless, the mood was lighter, the shoulders looser, the smile more genuine. With 117 points, Hamilton sits sixth in the Drivers’ standings, 46 behind team-mate Charles Leclerc, but crucially trending upward.
And now, to the comedy of expectation. Ferrari’s bold prediction that Hamilton “will” reach a podium is the kind of declaration that feels equal parts prophecy and stand-up routine. After all, what is Formula 1 if not a sport where statistics are sacred and streaks matter almost as much as trophies?
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History in the making
Hamilton’s podium drought has become a storyline so persistent that one half-expects Netflix to rebrand it as “The Crown-less”. The man who once redefined dominance now stalks a single third-place finish as if it were the Holy Grail.
Vasseur’s reassurances, meanwhile, sound like a parent promising a restless child: “Don’t worry, the ice cream van is coming.” The question is not whether Hamilton deserves a podium — of course he does — but whether fate, reliability, and Ferrari strategy will allow such a thing without another comic mishap.
For now, the Tifosi wait, Hamilton is chomping at the bit, but as the streak gets longer the F1 historians are sharpening their quills. Will 2025 be Hamilton’s first podium-less season? Will Lewis become the Ferrari driver who goes the longest without a podium since joining the team? In just eight race weekends time, the answers will be laid bare.
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Charles Leclerc was seen as a rising Formula One star when after just a single season with Sauber he was recruited to the most iconic of Formula One teams, clearly a dream start for the Monegasque to his F1 career. Yet now in his seventh season with the Maranello squad, all the history and success the Scuderia have had is not falling in his direction.
2025 was to be a year of promises fulfilled given after the summer break last year whilst Lando Norris hunted down Max Verstappen it was Leclerc who scored more points than anyone between Zandvoort and Abu Dhabi. Yet for some inexcusable reason, in the final year of the current car design regulations Ferrari decided not to evolve but to revolutionise their F1 challenger building the SF-25 which was “99% new” according to team boss Fred Vasseur.
The most visible change compared to its predecessor was the switch from pushrod to pull rod front suspension, the justification for which was to “clean up the airflow around the car” which would also provide “greater scope for further aero development, which had pretty much been exhausted with the previous iteration,”said Loic Serra – the teams technical director…. 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.
A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13, where Andrew oversees editorial standards and contributes to the site’s Formula 1 coverage. A career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media, Andrew trained in investigative journalism and has written for a range of European sports outlets.
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