The fanfares are over, the hype in Italy has drained away, Lewis Hamilton has had his second worst start to an F1 season across his eighteen years in the sport. After just three rounds the British drivers’ dreams of an eight drivers; championship this season lie in tatters.
Hamilton is eight in the F1 drivers championship, with just 15 points from three Grand Prix and a Sprint race, whilst joint favourites to win this season are 46 (Verstappen) and 47 (Norris) points ahead. Lewis is also clinging on to his team mates coat tails as Charles Leclerc has banked 20 points and lies sixth in the table.
The new Ferrari driver is 2-1 down in Grand Prix qualifying and 3-0 in Sunday’s finishing positions and to make matters worse his rookie replacement at Mercedes is flying high. In an evolution of there Mercedes F1 cars Hamilton had described as the “worst” he’s ever driven, the new Italian kid on the block has double the umber of points of Lewis, scoring in each of the four races held this year.
Hamilton claims his Ferrari car is faulty
Antonelli is almost matching the efforts of his team mate Russell, who is now in his seventh season in F1. The British driver lies fifth in the championship on 45 points with Antonelli one slot further back and Mercedes are resurgent lying second in the constructors title race behind McLaren.
In Japan Hamilton spent much of the race trying to catch the driver of his old Mercedes car and failing miserably. Lewis finished the race some 11 seconds in the wake of the rookie Italian and once again sparked rumours he was unhappy with the team.
In a subtle but telling assessment of his weekend in Japan, Hamilton suggested that a technical discrepancy could be to blame for the performance deficit between himself and Leclerc. The British driver alluded to a “shortfall” in his machinery, suggesting that his version of the Ferrari SF-25 has not been performing at the level of his teammate’s or indeed is not an identical car.
While Ferrari have yet to confirm any significant hardware differences between the two cars, Hamilton’s comments point to more disturbing tremors beneath the surface at Maranello. Since joining Ferrari for the 2025 season, Hamilton has struggled to find his rhythm in red. Apart from a surprise victory in the Shanghai Sprint Race – a moment that briefly rekindled hope his move to Italy was the correct one – the results have been disappointing.
Tensions between Lewis and his engineer
He struggled to an eighth place finish in Australia and finished sixth in Saudi Arabia after a subdued drive. At Suzuka, a track where Hamilton has won multiple times, there was little to see of the driver who once dominated the F1 hybrid era.
Despite the pre-season love between Ferrari and Lewis, where headmaster John Elkann introduced him at the factory to the minions, Hamilton and Ferrari are yet to become one. At the season opener in Australia the seven times world champion sounded annoyed with his race engineer Riccardo Adami who was told to be quiet and ‘let me be’.
The a strategic blunder from the team meant a shot at a podium was lost and the new superstar in Maranello trailed home to collect a single coin t on debut in tenth place. Hamilton tried to swat away the post race questions about tensions on team radio but next time out in China the confused communication was there again.
During the Grand Prix in Shanghai a number of exchanges between Hamilton and Adami were played and they gave the impression that the driver was refusing to obey team orders. Whilst Hamilton was shirty about when and where he was to allow his team mate through, he had initiated the call for Leclerc to move ahead and Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur was furious over what he described as selective messages being played.
Hamilton coded critique of Ferrari
Yet all should have been expected in Maranello. Hamilton in his time at Mercedes repeatedly complained about tyre selection, timings of pit stops, strategy calls and generally anything that he believed had been done by the team which hindered his performance.
Hamilton was then disqualified in Shanghai through what maybe have been his own demands to run the car lower to give him more speed. Lewis didn’t quite throw Ferrari under the bus, but gave the impression it was a shrug of the shoulders situation and the matter was beyond his control.
In Japan, Lewis qualified just eighth over six tenths slower than his team mate in fourth. Hamilton moved up one place but then was chasing down his replacement in a Mercedes, a task which proved to be forlorn. Speaking to Sky Sports F1 afterwards, Hamilton claimed that his car had a defect to team mate’s Leclerc which Ferrari needs to sort out for the next race this weekend in Bahrain.
“Through the first three races, there’s been a bit of a deficit between both sides of the garage on some elements of the car. On my side, underperforming. So it’s good to know. With what I had that is the best result I could get,”
Fred Vasseur ‘can’t let Hamilton get away with it’
Former F1 driver and expert F1 commentator for RTL in Germany, Christian Danner, has criticised Hamilton for his coded remarks adding they weren’t “particularly clever.” The German racer argues that Hamilton’s disappointing start with Ferrari and lack of performance against his team mate is most evident from his various outbursts.
Danner believes team boss Fred Vasseur needs to shut down the Lewis propaganda machine and swiftly and offers his analysis on Hamilton’s new start in Maranello. “He’s not really coming to terms with the whole issue,” Danner told the AvD Motorsport Magazine.“You can tell he’s a bit unsettled, almost a bit snotty, and complains about this and that.
“I mean, I expect – not necessarily for Bahrain, but at some point, of course – that Ferrari will respond to that. Fred Vasseur can’t let the driver say there’s a component on the car that’s hindering my performance. I don’t envy Fred because he really wants to make it work. He really wants Lewis to have everything.”
Continuing Danner is critical of Hamilton’s attitude. “I don’t think it’s very clever to make such cryptic accusations against the team. It’s like, ‘You didn’t give me one component, and that’s why I’m slow.’ I think, no matter how difficult it is for such a superstar, he has to bite the bullet and see how he gets on.”
Wolff knows the situation well
Of course Toto Wolff and Fred Vasseur are good friends and the Mercedes boss can teach his rival team principal a thing or two about handling Lewis’ public outbursts. Hamilton called for heads to roll at Mercedes in 2023 claiming the engineers did “not listen to me… someone should be accountable…” he demanded and a few months later the once technical director, Mike Elliot was exiled and left the team.
After the humiliation of two cars being disqualified in China, Ferrari have made the cautious move to raise the ride height of the cars but this all began with Hamilton requesting his setup in Shanghai be made lower to the ground. The increased height means the SF-25 is haemorrhaging lap time relative to McLaren, Mercedes and even the Red Bull in the hands of Max Verstappen.
Should the team not be able to resolve the issue, reports from Italy are now emerging Ferrari may abandon their challenge for 2025 and throw all their resources at the all new regulations for the 2026 F1 cars. Whilst this may well put Hamilton in a better position next year to once again fight for that elusive eighth world championship, in his first season at Ferrari it is crucial he establishes some level of authority and does not become Charles Leclerc’s whipping boy.
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Ferrari lie fourth in the constructors on 35 points, whilst table toppers McLaren have soared to Nelson’s (cricket analogy) 111 points. Come the end of the first six flyaways of 2024, this kind of form will see Ferrari completely out of the running for either championship. Not exactly what Lewis was hoping for and even before he gets to race for the Scuderia in Europe.
Vasseur too has his work cut out for him and given for much of the time when Hamilton was publicly criticising Mercedes he was their recognised number one driver, Toto Wolff had it easy using Lewis expert criticism to motivate the team. In his 12 seasons with Mercedes, Lewis was the king of the hill and once Rosberg left could pretty much say what he wanted. This will be a huge no, no at Ferrari and Hamilton must learn this quickly.
At Ferrari there is no number one driver, so Vasseur can’t concur with Hamilton’s portrayal that Ferrari have given him an inferior car to that of his team mate. These and many more divisive comments will emanate from Hamilton should he continue to be beaten by his team mate. After all there must be a reason why Lewis isn’t beating Leclerc, and of course its the fault of his car.
