Lewis Hamilton’s first Formula 1 season with Ferrari has so far been more than disappointing. The seven-time world champion has only secured one victory in the Sprint Race in China and a third place in Miami, again in the Saturday short-race. After that, the results have been far from satisfying, and it seems that in Spain, during the latest world championship round, rock bottom was reached.
That overtake by Nico Hulkenberg on the straight certainly demoralized a highly emotional driver like Lewis Hamilton, who just 24 hours earlier had been smiling in front of the cameras after what he called a positive qualifying session, and above all, due to his hope that the SF-25 would be strong in the race. Spoiler: it wasn’t. The SF-25 car’s balance, at least according to reports, was never ideal for the Briton throughout the entire Spanish Sunday.
Over the past two weeks, there has been talk of a possible departure from Ferrari, which he firmly denied during Thursday’s press conference in Montreal. The seven-time F1 champion has no intention of giving up, but he is well aware of the multiple challenges he has faced in this first part of his journey with Maranello — challenges that perhaps weren’t fully anticipated when he was presented this winter to the joy of the fans.
Those same fans are now questioning whether this partnership is truly solid. And yet, that undisputed win in the Sprint in China had sparked a sense of hope, quickly extinguished just over 24 hours later by the double disqualification, which essentially confirmed that the SF-25 was poorly conceived — very poorly. Lewis Hamilton has not found his footing with the car, and his adaptation is still at an early stage.
The Canadian Grand Prix could be a turning point for the season: here we will see whether the car has truly improved after recent performances that were, let’s say, “promising.” Some quotation marks are necessary, because it takes just a moment to be eliminated in Q2 again — something that happened less than a month ago at Imola and still stings.
A turning point not just for the team, but also for Lewis Hamilton himself on a track named after Gilles Villeneuve, where he has won seven times — a record he shares with Michael Schumacher. During Thursday’s media day, the Briton also wanted to express his support for Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari’s team principal, who is at the center of rumors suggesting he could leave Maranello at the end of this troubled season.
Lewis Hamilton acknowledged that the team had encountered significant problems starting from the second half of the Spanish Grand Prix. He said the team had preferred not to go into too much detail publicly, but that he made it clear after the race that he had never experienced such a complicated situation. After the GP, he and the engineers carefully reviewed everything and identified the source of the problem, which brought relief in finally understanding what had gone wrong.
Regarding criticism from some Italian media outlets, Lewis Hamilton admitted he had not been aware of it and only found out about it recently. The Briton said that Frederic Vasseur was one of the reasons he chose Ferrari and that he was genuinely grateful to him. The former Mercedes man emphasized that they were sharing this journey and that he wanted Frederic Vasseur to stay in his position, as he believed he was the right person to bring Ferrari back to the top. Lewis dismissed the accusations as unfounded, acknowledging that while there were difficulties and much work to be done, there was no debate about Frederic Vasseur’s role.
The seven-time Formula 1 world champion added that he did not feel pressured to achieve immediate results, even if it might appear otherwise from the outside. He explained that the real goal was to build technical consistency with the engineers and help the team grow over time, and stressed that everyone was doing their best to achieve that. Lewis Hamilton expressed hope that things would improve in Canada. According to the British driver, building a winning team requires patience, and he reiterated that he was at Ferrari to win. He affirmed his total commitment and stated there was no doubt about where his focus lay, adding that he hoped there would be no further questions or doubts about it.
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