Lewis Hamilton has attacked “older drivers” who have dared to criticise some of this seasons’s rookies. He claims he has and will continue to support the younger Formula One drivers even when his career is over.
This years crop of three completely fresh rookies has been Isack Hadjar, Kimi Antonelli and Gabriel Bortoletto who were joined by Oliver Berman and Liam Lawson contesting their first full season. Franco Colpanto joined Alpine after the first sic race weekends and each have experienced their highs and lows during the 2025 campaign.
Isack Hadjar started the year in the worst possible fashion, spinning out of the Australian Grand Prix on the way to the grid. In an interview with ORF after the race in Melbourne, Dr. Helmut Marko criticised the Racing Bull’s driver saying: “Isack Hadjar did a little bit of crying after his crash. That was a bit embarrassing.”
F1 rookies suffered slumps but come good
Kimi Antonelli had a mid season slump retiring four times in six races, which included taking out Max Verstappen in Austria. And in the seven races between Miami and Hungary he failed to score with the exception of his podium third finish in Canada. His qualifying tally against Russell is a rather poor 3-18.
Gabriel Bortoletto was slow to get off the mark and failed to score until round eleven in Austria and has less than half the points of his team mate Nico Hulkenberg. Franco Colapinto failed to obey his simple instructions from Flavio Briatore when he replaced the unfortunate Jack Doohan. “Be fast and don’t crash,” were his instructions, yet the Argentinian put his Alpine into the wall on his first weekend this season in qualifying for the Emilia-Romagne Grand Prix.
Oliver Bearman was described as “mad” by Sky’s F1 commentator for his red flag smash in the pit lane at Silverstone, and Liam Lawson was humiliated by being dropped to the Racing Bulls after just two race weekends.
Yet each of the have turned around their fortunes in a variety of ways. Whislt he remains pointless, Fraco Colapinto has out qualified and finished ahead of his team mate on four of the seven Grand Prix weekends prior to Brazil. He was awarded with a contract for 2026 whilst in Sao Paulo and admits it will be easier not having to go from race to race wondering if he’ll remain in the car.
Hadjar stand out podium in Zandvoort
Last time out in Mexico, Oliver Bearman delivered a remarkable performance, overtaking making up several places in the lap one chaos and going wheel to wheel with Verstappen to overtake him and go into fourth. He retained the position to the chequered flag, equaling Hass F1 best ever finish in their nigh on ten years of F1 racing.
Isack Hadjar was stand out in Zandvoort, where a chaotic race saw multiple safety cars. His third place finish for the Racing Bulls revived what was becoming a disappointing season and this was the team’s best finish since 2021 when under the Alpha tour name Pierre Gasly claimed third in Azerbaijan.
Liam Lawson also recovered from an early season drought of points, scoring solid points across the seven races starting from the Monaco Grand Prix. Through gritty defence in Baku, he claimed his best F1 result to date – in fifth place.
Gabriel Bortoletto went quietly about his business only scoring his first points at the Austrian Grand Prix. Yet his record in qualifying when compared to experienced team mate and one lap specialist Nico Hulkenberg is stunning, he is ahead of the German by 11-10 despite not being able to take part in the Sao Palou Saturday afternoon session.
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Hamilton high praise for 2025 rookies
When asked about the 2025 crop of rookie drivers in Brazil, Lewis Hamilton was effusive with his praise. “It’s great to see young talent coming through. You know, I remember getting here in 2007 and being one of them.” He goes on to outline how everything is a new experience, maybe with the exception of being on track.
“Maybe the driving does, but then there’s all the other things that are around, and the pressure is hugely high, and these youngsters are getting bombarded with questions and obviously the social media. But I think they’ve all been handling it really, really well,” added the Ferrari driver
Hamilton goes on to criticise the ex-F1 drivers who work in the media. “You know, you hear so many of these negative things coming from these older guys, these older drivers that more often than not, didn’t achieve much as it is.”
Lewis himself was the subject of implied and direct criticism earlier this year, as he struggled to adapt to life in Maranello. Former team owner Eddie Jordan described Ferrari’s decision to drop Sainz in favour of Hamilton claiming it was “absolutely suicidal” for the team which has failed to win a title since 2008.
Lewis plays the race card again
Former Scuderia driver Arturo Merzario was scathing over Hamilton’s outburst in Hungary where he suggested Ferrari should “change the driver” after he’d qualified particularly poorly. Merzario suggested Lewis had been “demolished by Ferrari” and that many within the team believed the signing of Lewis was for commercial purposes only, and remarkably that “ninety percent of Ferrari engineers disagreed, at least as far as I know,” with the appointment of the ex-Mercedes driver.
Lewis attempted to brush off the matter in an interview with Time Magazine where he said: “I’ve always welcomed the negativity,” he said. Hamilton again railed against the older F1 drivers and this time unnecessarily pulling the race card.
“I never, ever reply to any of the older, ultimately, white men who have commented on my career and what they think I should be doing. How you show up, how you present yourself, how you perform slowly dispels that,” Hamilton is quoted as saying.
Whilst Lewis Hamilton has promoted diversity in Formula One for most of his career, he has unfortunately played the race card too many times. In Hamilton’s situation playing the race card manipulates racial tensions to turn the argument in his favour, unfairly alleging oppression and tarring all white people with the same ‘racist’ brush.
Leclerc slams his Ferrari team “not good enough”
Hamilton syndrome unacceptable
He famously did this at the 2011 Monaco Grand Prix, when he had previously been called to the stewards office on six occasions already that season. When asked why this was happening, Hamilton responded “maybe its because I is black.” He was forced to issue an apology for in effectively calling the stewards racist.
Other examples can be found throughout his career, more recently in Sochi in 2020 where he was issued with two five second penalties for ignoring the race directors notes. His repose to his punishment was to insist: “Yep, of course it is…. They’re doing every… of course it is…. But it’s not to be expected. They’re trying to give me… they’re trying to stop me”.
Toto Wolff later confirmed Hamilton’s outburst came from the feeling of discrimination as he was challenging for a record seventh world championship. Whilst Hamilton has been a force for good his lack of judgement whilst criticising drivers like Romain Grosjean for failing to follow the Black Lives Matter doctrine of kneeling has often been questionable.
Just as a racist has inherent tendencies to act in that fashion, also as deeply ingrained in Hamilton is a belief that senior figures in F1 have been out to get him due to the colour of his skin. It’s an accusation that doesn’t fly and demeans Lewis’ influence when he speaks in this fashion.
Stella reveals Piastri’s Achilles Heel struck again in Brazil
McLaren’s team boss Andrea Stella has been repeating a narrative to explain why his Australian driver struggled so much in Austin and Mexico City. He claims Oscar Piastri’s driving style hampers him when the track conditions are low grip.
The team had encouraged him to adapt his driving style to resolve the issue in Mexico, although Oscar was unsure of how well the experiment had gone. “It’s difficult to say ultimately, I think we certainly tried a lot of different things, but at the back with cars as well, so it was difficult to kind of get a read on whether what I was changing with my driving was working that well or not,” Piastri said in the media pen.
The problem for the McLaren driver is that Las Vegas is next on the F1 calendar where the cold desert night temperatures will again see little grip in Sin City. The team’s expectations for Brazil were much higher for their young driver as the surface in Sao Paulo is abrasive often creating high tyre degradation. … READ MORE
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The whole supporting of BLM by Hamilton demonstrated he didn’t understand what they were about beyond the slogan.