Nico Rosberg has taken a swipe at his former team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who completed his first season at Ferrari without scoring a single podium finish. The comments from the 2016 Formula 1 world champion have reignited debate around Lewis Hamilton’s difficult transition to Maranello and the impact that the 2025 season could have on his legacy.
Hamilton, a disappointing first year at Ferrari
In his first year with Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton found himself facing difficulties that were partly unexpected. The British driver knew he was joining an environment that has been waiting a long time to return to the top of Formula 1, but the final outcome of the season was far from ideal. Lewis Hamilton ended the year without any podium finishes, while his team-mate Charles Leclerc managed to secure seven top-three results.
The seven-time world champion also struggled to adapt to a technical and human environment that was completely different from what he had been used to for most of his career. The spark with the SF-25 never truly ignited, and the Briton’s struggles appeared to reflect a broader discomfort with the ground-effect era as a whole. Across the entire four-year cycle of these regulations, he managed to claim only two victories.
For Nico Rosberg, ending such a demanding technical cycle in this way will remain a lasting blemish on Sir Lewis Hamilton’s extraordinary career, especially given the expectations that surrounded his move to Ferrari.
Rosberg’s words
“The situation got worse week by week. You could clearly see how uncomfortable he was in the car. When have we ever seen Lewis spin during a normal lap in a free practice session?” Nico Rosberg asked while speaking to Sky Sports UK after Lewis Hamilton’s mistake in FP3 at Abu Dhabi. “In his entire career we have never seen anything like that. And now, at Ferrari, he is making several mistakes. He simply does not feel comfortable with that car.”
Rosberg continued with an even harsher assessment of the season: “It has been a terrible season for him, and it is not a dignified way to end his career. Hamilton is being beaten by his team-mate, he struggles to get into Q2 and he goes off the track for no reason. It really cannot get any worse than this, it is a real nightmare.”
The former Mercedes driver also underlined the personal impact such a season can have on a champion of Lewis Hamilton’s calibre. “Personally, he will be experiencing this much more heavily than we can see from the outside. He is the best, there is no doubt about that, but this season leaves a stain on the memory we will have of him,” Nico Rosberg added. “Lewis is almost 41 years old. We know that he is not going to get any faster, and time is not on his side.”
Leave a Reply