Whilst the McLaren meltdown in the Qatari desert was grabbing all the Formula One headlines, Lewis Hamilton was bidding a premature farewell to the 2025 racing season.

In Las Vegas, Lewis described his “worst year” in F1 as a “nightmare.” For the first time in his career Lewis looks set to complete a calendar year without a podium Grand Prix finish. His chipper win in the Chinese Sprint in round two is a long and distant memory, as the seven times work champion closes out on his annus horribilis.

By all accounts following his fanfare arrival in Maranello, Hamilton has not been accepted by the team and suffered a difficult relationship with his race engineer. Such was the tetchy radio exchanges between the pair during the Qatar Grand Prix, it led Sky commentator David Croft to speculate whether Hamilton would be looking for a replacement for 2026.

 

 

 

Hamilton to raise Ferrari from their slumber

Lewis rode into Ferrari town believing like the great Michael Schumacher it was his role to tun around the fortunes of the sleeping giant F1 team, who have failed to win a title since 2008. Yet instead of improving, Ferrari who had the quickest car over the final six races in 2024, slipped to a distant fourth in the constructors championship.

Only once in the past two decades have the Scuderia failed to win a Grand Prix during a calendar year and on current form they most likely will add to that sad statistic come Abu Dhabi in a few days time.

Lewis Hamilton revealed He revealed in Belgium: “I’ve sent documents; I’ve done [that] through the year. After the first few races, I did a full document for the team. Then during this break, I had another two documents that I sent in, and so they would come in and want to address those.”

The seven times world champion who was usually recruited not by team principal Fred Vasseur, but by the Ferrari chairman John Elkann, believes he has been tasked with casting his eye over the Maranello operation and giving his opinion on how it stacks up when compared to that of Mercedes who were dominant for eight seasons.

Hamilton criticises the Qatar GP circuit

 

 

 

Maranello engineers didn’t want Lewis

However, according to former Ferrari driver Arturo Merzario, ‘the Hamilton files’ have not been well received by the engineers at Ferrari. He even made the dramatic claim that “90% of Ferrari engineers” did not want Lewis Hamilton to join the team.

Of course the Scuderia wasn’t built in a day, even in Michael Schumacher’s time, it was four years after the German joined in 1996 when they won the constructors’ trophy and the following year before Schumacher claimed his third drivers’ title.

Yet it seems Hamilton will not be afforded the luxury of time, and his latest assessment suggests he has lost faith in the team’s ability to change and improve. Hamilton has failed to make it out of Q1 for the last three qualifying sessions and since the half way point of the season the gap to his team mate Charles Leclerc has grown from 16 points to a remarkable 78.

Barring the deficit between Verstappen and Tsunoda at Red Bull, this is the largest gap between team mates of the 2025 season. With Charles Leclerc scraping into the points in Qatar, Ferrari are now confirmed as fourth in the constructors’ title race and whilst hoping for better times ahead, Hamilton is less than confident of that.

F1 driver trash talk again in Qatar

 

 

 

Hamilton doubts Ferrari will act

Coming twelfth in Losail, Lewis described the race at Losail as a “fight like you couldn’t believe” with his SF-25 car. But more of a concern were his comments to follow. “It definitely has been the most challenging year both in and out of the car. I’ve got so many notes in terms of things we need to improve on.

“Time will tell whether or not we act on those things and we keep hold of the things that are good and change the things that are not – and there’s plenty of those. There’s literally no reason why we couldn’t fix those [which are bad] if we just put those [my notes] into action. I’m hopeful for us making progress.” Lewis concluded.

This shocking statement from Hamilton suggesting there are those who are refusing to listen to him in Maranello, is a clear indication he’s lost faith in a Ferrari turnaround any time soon.

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Scuderia boss blames ‘psychological’ damage done

Team principal Fred Vasseur may need to sweep up again with the media following these comments from Hamilton as he did last time out in Las Vegas when Lewis claimed he was not looking forward to 2026. “This comes 10 minutes after a difficult race and I perfectly understand the frustration,” said Vasseur.

“When he says he’s ‘not focused on 2026’ it’s because he’s focused on his own race which was a tough one. This frustration, we have to take the positive from it. We take it as a positive reaction. We have to improve, that’s clear.”

In an attempt to explain the outbursts and criticism from Hamilton surrounding Ferrari, Fred Vasseur began a narrative in the team representatives FIA press conference. He said he “underestimated” the mental toll it wold take having stopped this year’s car development so early.

“When you still have 20 races to go, or 18 races to go, and you know that you won’t bring any aero development, it’s quite tough to manage psychologically,” said Vasseur. “But overall, we continued to push. We brought some mechanical upgrades, and we are trying to do a better job operationally, and this is the DNA of our sport. We have to accept this. It was a call, and I’m still confident with the call that we made.”

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Hamilton believes Maranello needs structural reform

Yet Hamilton’s complaints have not been over the team’s decision to shift its primary focus to the huge 2026 changes ahead, but that Ferrari’s antiquated way of doing this needs to change. When pressed in the summer as to the contents of ‘the Hamilton files’ Lewis was candid.

“Some of it is structural adjustments that we need to make as a team in order to get better in all the areas that we want to improve, and then the other one was really about the current issues that I have with this year’s car. Some things that you do want to take on to next year’s car, and some that you need to work on changing for next year.”

Calling for structural adjustments implies so many things, but one thing is for sure – this process would remove certain engineering figures in authority. It would mean breaking up internal Ferrari teams and/or merging them into others, clearly something the workforce in Maranello are highly resistant to.

Whilst John Elkann may have welcomed his seven times champion with open arms and even suggested Lewis experience at Mercedes could be useful as a learning tool for the Ferrari workforce, his recent comments would suggest the engineers are winning the battle with Hamilton.

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Elkann losing patience with Lewis?

Elkann praised the mechanics and the engineers in a public statement in Washington, but went on to criticise his drivers in the next breath stating: “We have drivers who need to focus more and talk less,” he said following the double DNF in Brazil. This was clearly directed at Hamilton who has referred to his copious Ferrari improvement notes this year in public on several occasions.

Whilst Lewis has a contract which states he can decide if he drives or not up and to the end of 2027, Ferrari have been ruthless over the year’s with drivers who have called out the team’s failings.

Unlike Lewis Hamilton, when the great Alain Prost joined Ferrari, his 1990 season was fairly satisfying with five Grand Prix victories. The following year was not one to remember for the French ace as his Ferrari 643 was s shocking Maranello design.

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Ferrari’s historic ruthlessness

Prost won not a race that season and the relationship between the Scuderia and ‘the professor’ became toxic. The team refused Prost’s request to start the Spanish Grand Prix on clicks. “If I’d had them, I could have won,” fumed Prost to the media after the race.

At the preceding Japanese Grand Prix, the shock absorbers on Prost’s Ferrari had failed during the race. Prost stormed out of the garage to give his interview, stating the car had been “like a horrible truck to drive.” That together with his revelations about the team refusing his choice of tyre, saw the Ferrari management decide to give him his marching orders with just once race remaining of the season.

Whilst the modern F1 driver is more skilled in their PR skills and on the whole manage to contain any frustrations they feel with their teams. Hamilton has been a one man Ferrari critic road show in 2025 and despite his reputation and contract he may be skating on thin ice.

With McLaren screwing over Oscar Piastri in Qatar and his manager Mark Webber looking thunderous whilst taking a long phone call; speculation will once again grow that Ferrari are after the young Aussie as a replacement for Lewis Hamilton – who could be exited any time soon.

 

 

 

McLaren’s bizarre reaction to Piastri post Qatar calamity

How papaya rules cost McLaren dear and Piastri is abandoned come the end of the race

One ironic soul in the TJ13 family observed of McLaren’s efforts in Qatar, they clearly have shares in Netflix ‘drive to Survive’ Formula One TV series. The calamity in the middle eastern desert is the second week in the row the Woking based team have gifted Red Bull and Max Verstappen the chance to slash the deficit in the drivers’ championship and the reaction from team boss Andrea Stella reveals papaya rules were at the heart of their huge mistake.

With Pirelli mandating no tyre could be run former than 25 laps, the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix was effectively forced into at least a two stop race. Teams strategised into the night on Saturday to determine their responses to various outcomes during the race on Sunday.

Qatar has a 100% record of seeing a safety car deployed and when the F1 gods wrote the script for the Grand Prix, lap 7 was the perfect time for Bern Mylander to take to the track. A coming together between Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly left carbon fibre strewn across the lap at turn two. It was immediately obvious to all that a safety car would be deployed to cover the clear up…. READ MORE