Lewis Hamilton’s much-anticipated debut season with Ferrari in 2025 rapidly turned to disappointment, with a year overshadowed by the team’s inconsistency and an uncooperative car, raising questions about responsibility for the downturn. As the topic of Lewis Hamilton Ferrari struggles grabs attention across Formula 1 circles, former Ferrari engineer Luigi Mazzola criticized the team’s inability to provide Hamilton with a suitable car, suggesting deeper issues within the organization.
Hamilton’s Challenging Start and Disappointing Outcomes
Entering 2025, Lewis Hamilton arrived at Ferrari with high expectations and intense scrutiny. Early in the season, his pole position and subsequent victory in the Shanghai Sprint hinted at promise. However, optimism quickly faded as Ferrari failed to win a single main race for the remainder of the season. Hamilton ultimately finished fifth in the championship standings—his lowest result in years—and, notably, completed the season without reaching the podium. This marked his first campaign in Formula 1 without a single top-three finish, highlighting the depth of the struggle.
These results drew criticism, but Luigi Mazzola did not pin the blame solely on Hamilton.
“I don’t put all the blame on Hamilton. I don’t put the whole situation, ‘Hamilton, you messed it all up.’ No. I put a good part of it on the team, because you cannot, in 24 races, still not have understood how this character drives, or at least not given him a car that is consistently satisfactory,”
said Luigi Mazzola, via NewsF1 Motorsport e Automotive.
Mazzola also offered a glimpse into the pressures surrounding both driver and supporting staff.
“A driver isolates himself and goes in peace when he has a car he can’t drive. This is what leaves me a bit perplexed. I don’t even blame the race engineer, because I don’t know how much freedom the race engineer has to decide what to do with the car,”
he added.
Systemic Issues Behind Ferrari’s Performance Drop
Mazzola pointed to more than just unfamiliarity with a new environment, highlighting cultural shifts, internal systems, and different communication expectations. Yet, he argued these factors alone could not explain the persistent issues throughout the season. Often, Ferrari struggled even before the races began, indicating deeper structural deficiencies around Hamilton and his teammate Charles Leclerc. Mazzola reflected on previous eras at Ferrari, where technical decisions sometimes ignored crucial driver feedback, and suggested such misalignments may have returned.
Meanwhile, Ferrari management had already begun diverting attention and resources towards the 2026 season, as team principal Fred Vasseur publicly acknowledged. This strategic pivot, designed to tackle upcoming regulation changes, left Hamilton and Leclerc contending with a car that lacked consistent performance, often leaving them chasing solutions rather than competing for victories.
Calls for Internal Overhaul as 2026 Beckons
Lewis Hamilton’s frustrations echoed those of Mazzola, especially as the 2025 season drew to a close. Facing what could be his last guaranteed year under contract, Hamilton called for substantial organizational changes ahead of 2026, and new technical guidelines that promise to reset the grid’s hierarchy. Hamilton’s outlook focused on internal reform rather than external excuses. Before the final race in Abu Dhabi, he explained:
“It’s not actually a straightforward process. We’re testing next week and then we go back to the factory. I’ve got to decide what my approach is when it comes to sitting down with the key stakeholders… and how that approach is to create the change that’s needed.”
— Lewis Hamilton, Seven-Time World Champion
The British driver also emphasized the importance of personal reflection and accountability. Over the season, he kept track of both his and the team’s decisions, shortfalls, and potential areas for improvement, viewing it as a comprehensive audit. He said:
“My surroundings in terms of personal personnel, team personnel, how you utilize people, whether people need to move into different positions to work better, all these different things need to be looked upon in my personal space so that we can optimise our teamwork.”
— Lewis Hamilton, Seven-Time World Champion
Looking Ahead to Pre-Season and Possible Turnaround
With Ferrari’s fans, engineers, and leaders eager for answers, the focus now shifts to pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya from January 26 to 30. This period will offer the first glimpse of whether Hamilton’s push for accountability and team revisions has begun to bear fruit or if the Lewis Hamilton Ferrari struggles may continue into another year. Given the sweeping changes due in 2026 and the pressures building within the team, the coming months may prove decisive for both Hamilton’s legacy and Ferrari’s efforts to return to the front of the Formula 1 grid.
