Lewis Hamilton’s first season with Scuderia Ferrari has been far from the dream scenario he imagined when signing for the legendary Italian outfit. Despite arriving as a seven-time Formula 1 World Champion, he has yet to win a Grand Prix in Ferrari colours, and by the halfway point of the season, he remains without even a single podium finish.
The statistics underline the scale of the challenge. Hamilton currently sits 175 points adrift of championship leader Oscar Piastri, with his campaign hampered by inconsistent performance and persistent difficulties extracting pace from the 2025 Ferrari challenger. The season has been equally frustrating for his teammate Charles Leclerc, who failed to convert pole position into victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix—a race where starting from pole is traditionally a major advantage due to the circuit’s tight, twisty layout and limited overtaking opportunities.
Leclerc’s frustration was clear during the race, as he repeatedly alluded over team radio to unspecified issues with the car. Paddock speculation suggested the Monegasque driver was battling a known weakness in the SF-25 chassis. Analysts Anthony Davidson and George Russell both suspected Leclerc had been forced to manage plank wear, a technical issue that had already led to disqualification for Ferrari drivers earlier in the year. Post-race, Leclerc mentioned a chassis-related concern, while Hamilton appeared visibly deflated after a lacklustre qualifying session and another race in which he made no meaningful progress through the field.
Amid this backdrop of underachievement, Piero Ferrari—the only living son of team founder Enzo Ferrari—offered his own perspective on the root causes of Ferrari’s inability to consistently fight for championships. Speaking to the Italian daily newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, he outlined why delivering title-winning machinery has become such a complex challenge for the team.
Ferrari’s last Formula 1 World Championship triumph came in 2008, when Kimi Räikkönen clinched the Drivers’ crown by a single point after a hard-fought battle with McLaren rivals Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. Since then, the Scuderia have come close on several occasions—most notably with Alonso in 2010 and 2012, and with Sebastian Vettel in 2018—but have ultimately fallen short.
Piero Ferrari attributed this ongoing struggle to the cyclical nature of Formula 1 success. He explained that the sport has always moved in competitive cycles, and when a team enters a downturn, it is impossible to know how far it will slide before the recovery begins. He also stressed that modern F1 regulations, particularly the budget cap, make it much harder for a team to spend its way out of trouble. In the past, a lack of competitiveness could be addressed with aggressive investment, but now, Ferrari must optimise a wide range of elements—technical innovation, operational efficiency, and team cohesion—without exceeding financial limits. Only by excelling in all these areas simultaneously can the Scuderia hope to change their trajectory.
In a lighter moment, Piero Ferrari reflected on his personal favourites among the many legendary drivers who have worn the iconic red overalls. Although names such as Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, and now Lewis Hamilton are synonymous with Ferrari’s history, he revealed that his favourite Ferrari World Champion was the late Niki Lauda. Piero recalled how his father personally selected Lauda after watching him race in Monte Carlo, recognising in the young Austrian a winning mentality and an ability to improve both the car and the team, rather than simply driving fast and taking risks.
Over the years, Ferrari and Niki Lauda developed a close friendship, one that Piero says he still treasures deeply. Lauda’s arrival in the mid-1970s revitalised the Scuderia, culminating in his first Formula 1 World Championship in 1975 and ending an 11-year title drought for the team. In many ways, Hamilton now faces a similar challenge—bringing championship glory back to Maranello after more than a decade without success. The road ahead may be complicated, but history shows that with the right combination of driver, car, and team unity, Ferrari can rise again.
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