The start of Lewis Hamilton’s adventure with Ferrari has certainly not been what fans dreamed of. Between adaptation difficulties, inconsistent performances, and internal misunderstandings, the seven-time world champion has struggled to find a rhythm with the SF-25. Yet, according to Flavio Briatore, the best is yet to come.
Guest on the radio program La politica nel pallone, the Italian manager – now a consultant and key figure at Alpine – made a prediction destined to stir debate: “Next year everything will change. You’ll see, with the new cars, Hamilton will be fighting for victories again. He’s always great.”
A statement that sounds like a promise of revival for the British ace, who has so far achieved only one victory this season (in the Sprint in China) and experienced several difficult weekends. Briatore also emphasized how the current technical context of Formula 1 makes everything more complicated: “Today there are seven cars within two tenths. The only truly competitive team this year is McLaren. But with the 2026 regulations, we will start from scratch, and Lewis Hamilton will know how to take advantage of it.”
The new technical rules, in fact, promise to level performance once again, as happened in 2014 – the year in which, thanks to a regulation change, Lewis Hamilton began his winning cycle with Mercedes. A parallel that did not go unnoticed by insiders: even then, the British driver struggled to fit into his new team before transforming it into a world championship-winning machine.
The initial skepticism about the Hamilton–Ferrari pairing
Interestingly, today’s words mark a shift in Briatore’s tone, who in recent months had been skeptical about Hamilton’s arrival in Maranello. In an interview with Sport Bila last January, he admitted: “I respect the choice, but I don’t understand why break up the Leclerc–Sainz pairing. If I were in charge, I wouldn’t have signed Lewis.”
Today, however, the former Benetton and Renault team principal seems convinced that the British champion will redeem himself and that Ferrari can finally reap the rewards of a bold bet.
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