One of the biggest talking points of the 2025 Formula 1 season was Lewis Hamilton’s performance behind the wheel of the Ferrari. Race after race, weekend after weekend, it became clear that the partnership between the most successful driver in F1 history and the sport’s most decorated team was not producing the expected results.
By the end of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton managed to secure sixth place in the championship, fending off a late-season push from Andrea Kimi Antonelli. This avoided the possibility of his first season with Ferrari being the worst in his career in terms of championship standing (he finished seventh in his final year with Mercedes in 2024). Some narratives suggested that Lewis Hamilton improved after the summer break, but the data tells a different story.
No real progress after the summer break
In reality, the numbers do not support this idea. The three consecutive Q1 eliminations in the final three qualifying sessions of the year certainly do not reflect improvement. Looking at points scored, Lewis Hamilton gathered just 47 points over the last 10 races after the summer break. This is roughly half the points of his teammate, Charles Leclerc, who scored 91 in the same period.
The comparison with the driver Lewis Hamilton replaced, Carlos Sainz, is even more striking. Carlos Sainz, in his first season with Williams, scored 48 points from Zandvoort to Abu Dhabi – one more than Lewis Hamilton in the same races. Moreover, the Briton ranked only eighth in points over the final ten rounds, while he was sixth in the first 14 races.
Statistically, Lewis Hamilton’s performance declined from an average of 7.79 points per race in the first 14 rounds to 4.7 points per race in the last ten. By contrast, Charles Leclerc’s average only dropped from 10.79 to 9.1. In summary, the numbers indicate nothing resembling an upward trend for Lewis Hamilton in the second half of the season.
Far from a late-season resurgence, the data paints 2025 as a year of steady decline for the most successful driver in F1 history. All eyes now turn to the clean-sheet 2026 car and whether Maranello can finally give Lewis Hamilton a machine worthy of his talent.
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