Why Lewis Hamilton would have struggled to win the 2025 championship even driving the McLaren MCL39. Lewis Hamilton was told why age and declining consistency meant he would not have won the 2025 Formula 1 title even in McLaren.

Lando Norris emerged as the 2025 Formula 1 drivers’ world champion, delivering McLaren their first individual title success since Lewis Hamilton claimed the inaugural crown of his record-equalling seven championships back in the 2008 season. The achievement marked a symbolic full-circle moment for the Woking-based team, but also underlined how dramatically the competitive landscape had shifted nearly two decades later.

Lando Norris secured the championship in a tense Abu Dhabi finale, finishing just two points ahead of Max Verstappen and 13 points clear of his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri. While Norris celebrated his maiden Formula 1 title, Lewis Hamilton’s long-anticipated move to Ferrari failed to deliver the fairytale ending many had imagined, with the British driver never entering serious championship contention during the 2025 campaign.

Historically, only Ferrari have claimed more Formula 1 drivers’ championships than McLaren, with the Scuderia sitting on 15 titles compared to McLaren’s now 13. Ferrari’s last drivers’ crown remains Kimi Räikkönen’s dramatic success in 2007, a season that denied a rookie Lewis Hamilton by the narrowest of margins, before Hamilton famously responded by defeating Felipe Massa by a single point in 2008.

Lewis Hamilton went on to dominate the sport during his long tenure with Mercedes, winning six additional world championships between 2014 and 2020 while based in Brackley. However, following winless seasons in 2022 and 2023, Lewis Hamilton opted for a high-profile switch to Ferrari ahead of the 2025 Formula 1 season. That gamble ultimately resulted in another campaign without a victory, extending a challenging period in the latter stages of his career.

Why Lewis Hamilton would not have won the 2025 F1 title even in a McLaren

Upon arriving in Maranello, Lewis Hamilton publicly expressed confidence that Ferrari possessed all the necessary elements to fight for the world championship in 2025. That optimism was understandable, given Ferrari had finished just 14 points behind McLaren in the 2024 constructors’ standings. Yet the reality proved very different, as Ferrari ended the 2025 season a staggering 435 points adrift of McLaren, who comfortably retained the constructors’ title.

Ferrari made an early strategic decision to halt development of their 2025 Formula 1 car as early as April, diverting resources toward the sweeping 2026 regulation changes. McLaren followed a similar path but only shifted their focus in July, allowing them to maintain competitive momentum for longer. Even so, former racing driver and analyst Tom Coronel argued that car performance alone would not have changed Lewis Hamilton’s fate in 2025.

According to Tom Coronel, Lewis Hamilton’s age was the decisive factor that would have prevented him from winning the 2025 Formula 1 drivers’ championship, even if he had been behind the wheel of the McLaren MCL39. Coronel suggested that the physical and mental demands of modern Formula 1 were increasingly favouring a younger generation of drivers.

Coronel indicated that drivers such as George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz would all have been credible title contenders in the McLaren, alongside Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen. However, with Lewis Hamilton turning 41 in January, Coronel believed the seven-time world champion was no longer operating at the peak level required to sustain a championship-winning campaign.

He argued that Lewis Hamilton made too many small errors throughout the season and no longer showed the upward trajectory associated with drivers still capable of reinventing themselves at the very top of the sport. In Coronel’s view, the performance gap between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at Ferrari served as clear evidence that time had begun to take its toll.

Charles Leclerc decisively outperformed Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari in 2025

Charles Leclerc established himself as the clear team leader during his first season as Lewis Hamilton’s teammate at Ferrari. The Monegasque driver consistently outperformed Lewis Hamilton as the Briton struggled to adapt to a new technical environment, unfamiliar car characteristics and a different team culture after more than a decade at Mercedes.

Across the season, Charles Leclerc dominated the internal qualifying battle by a margin of 19–5 and held an equally emphatic advantage in race finishes, leading Lewis Hamilton 18–3 in races where at least one Ferrari reached the chequered flag. The statistical gap highlighted how quickly Charles Leclerc extracted performance from the Ferrari package compared to his vastly more experienced teammate.

For the first time in his 19-year Formula 1 career, Lewis Hamilton failed to secure a single Grand Prix podium across an entire season. In contrast, Lando Norris topped the podium count in 2025 with 18 appearances, including seven victories, followed closely by Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen.

All seven of Ferrari’s Grand Prix podium finishes in 2025 were claimed by Charles Leclerc, whose best results were second-place finishes at Monaco and Mexico City. Charles Leclerc also delivered Ferrari’s only pole position of the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, underlining his one-lap superiority. Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, failed to reach Q3 on nine occasions, a statistic that further reinforced the growing performance divide within the Ferrari garage.

Ultimately, while the idea of Lewis Hamilton fighting for an eighth world title at McLaren remains a compelling hypothetical, the evidence from 2025 suggests that age, adaptation challenges and a relentless new generation would have made such an outcome highly unlikely.