Lewis Hamilton has been on the back foot in his F1 career ever since the dramatic conclusion to the 2021 season and the last-lap shootout with Max Verstappen in Abu Dhabi. The following season, his faithful wingman, Valtteri Bottas, was ditched for George Russell—a move Hamilton critiqued, suggesting the Finn should remain at Mercedes.
Russell adapted in 2022 to the all-new F1 ‘ground effect’ car design as Mercedes struggled with relentless bouncing for several months. Come the end of the year, it was the new kid on the block who had bettered the seven-time world champion in the drivers’ championship by 35 points.
The following season, Russell began to believe his own hype, and a combination of driver errors and mechanical issues saw him finish the season well behind his teammate. This was the season where Mercedes boss Toto Wolff dragged out the new contract negotiations with Hamilton for month after month until it was eventually signed in the autumn, but Hamilton appeared less than enthusiastic at the big reveal.
Hamilton let down gently by Mercedes
Rather than eulogise over his time with Mercedes and how he was looking forward to another two years, Hamilton remarked, “this will not be my last racing contract,” in a defensive fashion. What we didn’t know was that behind the scenes, Toto Wolff had refused to grant his star driver more than a guaranteed one-year deal for 2024, with either party having an option to elect for a second year.
In effect, Mercedes could have binned Hamilton after just one year, something he clearly was not happy about. Within months, Hamilton’s displeasure was plain for all to see as, before even pre-season testing had begun for 2024, it was announced he would be leaving for Ferrari the following season.
Again, that season Lewis was beaten by his teammate George Russell, although their margin was just 22 points this time around. Hamilton received a fanfare of a welcome in Maranello as he arrived in his newly tailored Italian three-piece suit. He was met by the Ferrari Group President himself, who showed him around the facilities built by the late Enzo Ferrari.
After pre-season testing, Hamilton made it known that the Ferrari chassis didn’t suit his particular driving style, although much of this was a continuation of Lewis’ dislike of the ground effect regulations. After the Spanish Grand Prix, he described his drive as the “worst race balance-wise” that he’d ever experienced.
Hamilton rails on Ferrari mistakes
Lewis repeated time after time he was struggling with the rear end of the SF-25, which he found unpredictable and often left him “fighting the car” rather than driving it.
Having won the Sprint in China, Hamilton was to suffer disqualification from the Grand Prix when the FIA discovered his skid plank had worn beyond the legal limit, meaning Ferrari had been running their car too low to the ground. He blamed the team for being “too aggressive” with ride height on bumpy tracks.
When Ferrari got it wrong, Lewis was often vocal about the mistakes; such as in Zandvoort, where he revealed the team overruled his wish to use a set of medium tyres, leading him to being on the “back foot” throughout their Grand Prix.
Ferrari decided to “double stack” their cars during a safety car period in Qatar, something Lewis was critical of given it dropped him into the midfield—a move he felt was poorly timed.
Communication issues with race engineer
Then there was the farce that was the “Adami” race engineer relationship. Early season terse exchanges between the two were regular. Hamilton was unhappy when he was not given enough information and complained when he felt Riccardo Adami was giving him too much.
Lewis admitted he felt like qualifying had become his “Achilles’ heel” as he struggled with tyre warm-up race after race, and his intra-teammate battle in qualifying finished the year 19-5 in Charles Leclerc’s favour. Hamilton had a number of embarrassing qualifying sessions where he failed to get the tyres to the correct temperature and suffered the ignominy of failing to make it out of Q1—notably Belgium and Las Vegas.
Come the end of the year, he was beaten by his teammate for the sixth time in his 19 seasons of F1 racing. The once invincible Lewis Hamilton had been humbled again by his most recent teammate. He suggested part of the reason for his struggles with the Ferrari car was because it had already been designed around “Charles Leclerc’s DNA.”
Hamilton admitted the mental toll of the season had been crushing and his responsibility to Ferrari and the Tifosi was weighing him down. He spoke in Abu Dhabi about needing to “rediscover my joy” over the 2025/26 winter break before anticipating the new 2026 cars, which had ditched the ground effect principles he disliked so much.
Hamilton losing to Leclerc again
Yet once again, Hamilton is reflecting on a start to the 2026 season which he is unhappy with. He has been beaten 3-1 by Leclerc in Grand Prix qualifying and has crossed the finish line ahead of his teammate just once in six races. A post-race penalty for Leclerc in Miami saw him relegated two slots behind Hamilton, down in 8th place.
The latest ‘reasons’ coming from the Hamilton camp as to why he remains Ferrari’s second-placed driver come after the Miami Grand Prix. The object of Lewis’ ire is the Ferrari simulator. “I’m going to have a different approach in the next race,” Hamilton told the written media in the FIA press conference. “Because the way we’re preparing at the moment is, it’s not helping. And so we’ll see how that goes for the next race.”
“Ultimately it’s always [a matter of] correlation. We go on it, and then get to the track and the car feels different when you get to a track. I don’t like simulators in general, but I’m at the simulator every week in the build-up to this race and working on correlation constantly.”
Time to bin the Ferrari simulator
“You go on it, you prepare for the track, you drive it and you get the car set-up to a certain place—and then you come to the track and that set-up doesn’t work.” One of Lewis’ better weekends was in China this season, and he revealed coming into that weekend after the season opener in Melbourne he had no time to use the simulator.
“When we went to China I had the best weekend without the sim,” Hamilton revealed. “So in an ideal world I should have started where Charles was at the beginning of the weekend and I think we would have just had a stronger weekend from there on.”
“So I’m not going to go on the simulator between now and the next race [in Canada]. I’ll still go and hold meetings at the factory and stuff—but I’m just going to back away from it for a little bit and see,” Lewis concluded.
Back soon folks for the next edition of 101 reasons “why not”—by Lewis Hamilton.
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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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