Saudi Arabia left Lewis Hamilton with very little hope for the potential in the 2025 season, labelling the ground effect cars ‘the worst’ as he remains pessimistic about 2026.
The 2025 season has been a roller coaster for Lewis Hamilton. In China, he took a surprise pole and sprint win, stunning the crowds with his performance. A glimmer of hope settled with Hamilton that maybe an eighth title would materialise.
Instead, Hamilton’s performances have faltered, and the seven-time world champion is resigned as he draws grim conclusions about his headline move to Ferrari.
Before his move to Ferrari, Hamilton struggled with the 2022 onwards ground effect cars. While many put it down to the difficulties with the Mercedes machinery, with both Russell and Hamilton fighting against their Brackley-built cars.
But the struggle has continued into his tenure with Ferrari. The Chinese Sprint Race is the sole occasion that Hamilton has found himself ahead of Leclerc this season.
In Saudi Arabia, Leclerc took the first Grand Prix podium for the team. Pushing his SF-25 to the limit and keeping himself ahead of the McLaren of Lando Norris. Hamilton finished the race 30 seconds off the pace of his teammate.
Hamilton didn’t hold back his criticisms of the ground-effect car after another race, stuck, unable to fight with the cars around him. He told PlanetF1, “The worst, yeah. With less ground effects, let’s hope things that things shift.”
“I really don’t know. I don’t know anything about next year’s car, so I’m not spending any time to think about it.”
Teammate vs teammate
While at Mercedes in the ground effect regulations, Hamilton fell short of Russell in qualifying performances. However, he always seemed to extract more performance when it came to race day. Unfortunately, that rule hasn’t been followed through on his short tenure so far at Ferrari.
The Brit put his struggles in the mid-corner performance, with Leclerc handling the SF-25 better through the difficult corners.
He admitted, “He’s been driving this car for a long time, so he definitely knows it really well.”
“There’s plenty in the data, for sure. Honestly, like, it doesn’t look massively different in the data. I just take it slower through the corners.”
Hamilton pushed that he’s been giving it his all to try to extract more performance out of the Maranello machinery, but nothing has come from it.
He said, “In qualifying, it’s me extracting performance, and, in the race today, I literally tried everything, and the car just didn’t want to work with us.“
“I’m just trying things to make a difference. I think I’ll struggle also in Miami. I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna struggle for, but it’s definitely painful.”
A short break before Miami theoretically gives Ferrari a chance to regroup and bring more performance. However, Hamilton isn’t hopeful. He said, “At the moment there’s no fix,” he said. “This is how it’s going to be for the rest of the year. It’s just going to be painful.”
