Lewis Hamilton’s challenging first season at Ferrari mirrors Alain Prost’s struggle
Lewis Hamilton is eager to move on from his first season with Ferrari, which is widely regarded as one of the most difficult campaigns in his 19-year Formula 1 career. After finishing seventh in his final season with Mercedes in 2024 – his lowest championship position to date – the seven-time world champion expected a fresh start with Ferrari in 2025. Instead, he endured a season without a single podium finish for the first time in his career.
Ferrari halted development on the SF-25 early to prioritise the 2026 F1 regulations. While the team did introduce some upgrades in 2025, they were insufficient to help Hamilton adapt to a challenging car. Adaptation issues proved to be a major factor in his struggles, as the 40-year-old found it difficult to integrate fully with the team and extract maximum performance. Hamilton disagreed with the 2025 development strategy, pushing for more upgrades that were ultimately shelved in favour of the 2026 car.
Meanwhile, teammate Charles Leclerc managed seven podiums in 2025, highlighting the contrast in adaptation and performance between Ferrari’s drivers. Questions arose over Lewis Hamilton’s results, with pundits such as Tom Coronel suggesting that age could have limited his ability to compete at the very top, even if he had remained at Mercedes.
Hamilton underestimated the cultural shift at Ferrari, just as Alain Prost did
Transitioning from Mercedes to Ferrari was always going to be a significant challenge for Lewis Hamilton. He faced a new car, a new team, a new environment, a new race engineer, and even a new language to navigate – a stark contrast to his 12 years at Brackley. Formula 1 analyst Karun Chandhok believes the Briton underestimated just how large the cultural shift at Ferrari would be, comparing it to the difficulties experienced by four-time world champion Alain Prost when he joined the Scuderia from McLaren.
Karun Chandhok explained on The F1 Show that Prost had always felt most comfortable with British teams, winning all of his championships in that environment. Moving to Ferrari, he struggled with the team’s unique culture, a challenge Hamilton is now facing. The F1 commentator and analyst added that the difference in team communication was particularly striking. He described how Hamilton’s race radio messages often failed to convey his intentions clearly to the Ferrari engineers, a situation that rarely occurred during his time at Mercedes.
“The relationship built at Mercedes was incredibly strong over time,” Karun Chandhok noted. “At Ferrari, there’s still a lot of miscommunications. Listening to Lewis on the radio, it’s clear that he knows what he’s thinking, but the team doesn’t always understand him. That cultural transition has been a real challenge.”
Why Hamilton struggled in 2025
Many expected Lewis Hamilton to deliver Ferrari’s first drivers’ championship since Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, but the season turned into a nightmare. He finished just six points ahead of rookie Kimi Antonelli, who replaced him at Mercedes. Ferrari’s 2025 car, combined with operational missteps, limited the team’s competitiveness and hampered Hamilton’s ability to perform.
Karun Chandhok highlighted issues with Hamilton’s communication with race engineer Riccardo Adami, noting that the pair often seemed out of sync, further complicating the driver’s adaptation. Former world champion Damon Hill believes Hamilton overextended himself with promotional duties and behind-the-scenes efforts to improve the team, contributing to the demanding season. Christian Danner argued that Hamilton misjudged his own ‘immortality’ at Mercedes and assumed he could impose similar changes at Ferrari, a strategy that did not yield results.
Historically, even drivers like Alain Prost, Fernando Alonso, and Sebastian Vettel struggled to reshape Ferrari’s philosophy to match that of British teams accustomed to success. Lewis Hamilton now faces the same challenge, with the Scuderia’s distinct culture and operations requiring a period of adaptation before he can extract peak performance in his second season.
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