Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton endured another painful setback in qualifying for the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, ending the session only in P16. The result marked his third consecutive elimination in Q1, something the seven-time Formula 1 world champion had not experienced since the 2009 season during his early years at McLaren.
This difficult run also means Lewis Hamilton has now missed out on reaching the second phase of qualifying four times in a row across both Grand Prix and Sprint weekends. For a driver holding a record 104 pole positions, Hamilton’s 1:23.394 lap at Yas Marina highlighted just how far he and Ferrari have slipped during a turbulent 2025 campaign.
His failure to progress was sealed by Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda, who denied Lewis Hamilton a Q2 appearance by the extremely small margin of just 0.008 seconds. Meanwhile, teammate Charles Leclerc comfortably advanced with a 1:23.163 lap, placing P5 both in Q1 and on the final grid for Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc’s consistent qualifying form increases the pressure on Lewis Hamilton inside Ferrari
In the opening two sectors of his final Q1 attempt, Lewis Hamilton looked on course to escape the drop zone, staying within 0.152s of Oscar Piastri’s leading time of 1:22.605. But the final sector once again proved the decisive weakness, costing Hamilton a place in Q2 and handing him his ninth failure to reach Q3 this season as a Ferrari driver.
The intra-team qualifying comparison further underlines the challenge. Charles Leclerc now leads Lewis Hamilton 19–5 in their Grand Prix qualifying head-to-head, and 4–2 in Sprint Qualifying. This sharp contrast is what Damon Hill described as the “elephant in the room,” a dynamic that makes it increasingly difficult for Hamilton to argue that Ferrari’s struggles stem primarily from its car rather than from his adaptation to it.
Damon Hill explained on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra that Lewis Hamilton cannot realistically persuade Ferrari about the team’s deeper problems when Charles Leclerc continues to extract strong results from the same machinery, including a pole position in Hungary and 23 Q3 appearances from 24 Grands Prix.
Damon Hill commented: “There’s a little bit of an elephant in the room, which is the fact that if you’re going to go and talk to Ferrari and say, ‘You know, the reason you’re not doing well is because of this, this and this’, you have to be the quickest guy to be able to have them be convinced that you’re telling them the right thing.
“That is one of the problems with not being the quickest guy on the team. It becomes political, doesn’t it?”
Damon Hill praises Charles Leclerc’s commitment in Abu Dhabi qualifying
Despite driving the same unpredictable SF-25, Charles Leclerc once again displayed exceptional commitment throughout qualifying. The Monegasque has only missed Q3 once all season — at Imola, where he still outqualified Lewis Hamilton, who took P12 that day before matching his best Ferrari finish of P4.
For Lewis Hamilton, recent qualifying sessions have only deepened the frustration, with Q1 exits in Las Vegas, Qatar and now Abu Dhabi. The Las Vegas weekend was particularly painful, as Hamilton qualified last on merit for the first time in his career, and the Qatar Sprint weekend brought two more early eliminations in SQ1 and Q1.
The Ferrari SF-25 has proven to be a difficult and unpredictable machine throughout 2025, and it continued to challenge both drivers at Yas Marina. But Damon Hill felt that Charles Leclerc showed remarkable bravery in how aggressively he pushed the Ferrari during Q2, particularly during a wild onboard moment that demonstrated just how on-the-limit he was driving.
Damon Hill said: “We’re watching the onboard, he was absolutely manhandling that car around the circuit in a way that was, well, it was very brave. I mean, he was totally committed, everywhere, and he deserved to get that thing through. I say thing because it’s not been the best car that Ferrari have produced.”
As the 2025 season draws to a close, the contrast between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc continues to shape Ferrari’s internal storyline — a storyline that raises difficult questions for the team and for Hamilton himself heading into 2026.
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