Inside Ferrari: What the Maranello team really thinks about Lewis Hamilton after five races

Ferrari’s Internal Assessment of Lewis Hamilton Revealed After Challenging Start to 2025 F1 Season

When Ferrari confirmed the signing of Lewis Hamilton, many within the team believed they were securing one of the most reliable and high-impact additions in modern Formula 1. With a legacy built on working with legends like Michael Schumacher and Niki Lauda, Ferrari saw Hamilton—already a seven-time world champion—as a natural fit to spearhead their long-overdue return to title-winning form.

Despite being the most successful team in F1 history, Ferrari have now gone 18 seasons without a championship. Over the years, they’ve brought in big names like Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel in the hope of breaking that streak, only to fall short each time. The British driver was meant to be the driver who could finally succeed where others had failed.

Expectations were sky-high heading into the 2025 season, particularly after Ferrari closed out the previous year with strong momentum. Fans filled the grandstands to watch Hamilton’s debut testing sessions, convinced that the Briton could deliver an eighth world title. But as the campaign has unfolded, the reality has been far from what Maranello hoped for.

Apart from a standout Sprint Race win in Shanghai, Hamilton’s first five races in red have been underwhelming. While Charles Leclerc appears increasingly in tune with the SF-25, Hamilton is visibly struggling to unlock its potential.

Lewis Hamilton’s Early Ferrari Struggles Drawing Concern from Inside the Team
Formula 1 journalists Mark Hughes and Scott Mitchell-Malm discussed Hamilton’s underperformance on The Race F1 Podcast, describing it as one of the most difficult chapters of his career. Hughes reportedly commented that Hamilton’s current form marks a clear low point—worse than anything he experienced during Mercedes’ recent downturn. He added that the pressure from within Ferrari is intensifying, especially given how strongly chairman John Elkann advocated for the British driver’s arrival.

Hughes also suggested that Hamilton’s struggles aren’t just affecting the Scuderia internally—they’re undermining one of F1’s biggest promotional storylines: the sport’s most decorated driver joining its most historic team. That narrative now risks collapse if the Briton can’t turn things around.

Mitchell-Malm echoed the sentiment, claiming that Lewis Hamilton’s performances have fallen well short of both internal and external expectations. He pointed out that while there have been moments throughout race weekends that hinted at improvement, those flashes have amounted to false hope. The lack of consistency and the inability to build on those brief signs of progress have only deepened the concerns within the team.

Ferrari Originally Hoped Lewis Hamilton Would Assert Himself as Team Leader Over Charles Leclerc
The British driver’s adjustment period was always expected to be challenging. After over a decade racing with Mercedes, the move to a different team—with a distinct engineering philosophy—was inevitably going to demand a period of adaptation. However, few anticipated that the transition would be quite this steep.

Despite several drivers switching teams ahead of the 2025 season, Lewis Hamilton was the most deeply entrenched in his previous environment. The challenges have extended beyond just understanding the SF-25’s dynamics; issues such as Ferrari’s unique braking characteristics and the switch away from Mercedes‘ power unit have also caught him off guard.

Internally, Ferrari’s leadership had hoped Hamilton would quickly establish himself as the team’s de facto lead driver. Yet with Charles Leclerc maintaining strong form and regularly outperforming his new teammate, that aspiration has not materialized. Charles Leclerc’s consistency and adaptability have left him in a position to contend for podiums—had Ferrari delivered a more competitive aerodynamic package, he might well be in the title fight.

Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, finds himself driving what is currently the fourth-fastest car on the grid, still a step behind his teammate in both pace and results. With each passing race, the scrutiny grows, and the dream of a seamless transition to Ferrari supremacy appears increasingly distant.