Time waits for Carlos Sainz, so why is Lewis Hamilton declared finished?

While Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari tenure has started in similar fashion to how his time at Mercedes ended, write him off at your peril.

Having spent most of his final year with Mercedes seemingly mystified about where his competitiveness had vanished, his first few races have continued in a similar vein despite his victory in the Chinese Grand Prix Sprint.

The more things change for Lewis Hamilton, the more they stay the same

It’s not all that long ago since Lewis Hamilton was the undisputed king of the Mercedes F1 team, but the seven-time F1 World Champion has never seemed quite the same since the traumatic conclusion to the F1 2021 championship.

The dynamic change of being paired with a young, hungry, and extremely talented youngster in George Russell coincided with his team’s dip in form with the new regulations, and, by 2024, Hamilton was almost unrecognisable.

Gone was the self-assuredness, the enduring confidence that occasionally teetered on the brash, with Russell more often than not emerging as the lead driver for the Brackley-based squad – the younger driver slowly but surely emerging on top as Hamilton’s speed continued to elude.

The biggest issue for Hamilton was in his qualifying, which constantly compromised his potential on race day. Last year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix was a great example of this – while Russell put the W15 on pole position, Hamilton made errors that meant he lined up 10th on the grid. On race day, Hamilton sliced his way to second place and finished just seven seconds behind his teammate – his consistency over a race distance shining through.

It’s often said of older drivers that it’s the single-lap pace that disappears first when biology and physiology kick in – and it’s appeared for some time that Hamilton is in this phase. Is Hamilton still a top-tier F1 driver? Of course. But is he as fast as he was, say, between 2017 and ’20? Unlikely.

The man himself appeared racked by self-doubt towards the end of his Mercedes time, unable to discern whether the issues with his consistency were down to an unhappiness with the car, or down to changes within himself that are so small as to be infintesimal to anything less precise than an F1 stopwatch.

It’s led to all sorts of theories – from one extreme of the far-fetched cries of sabotage, to the other of him simply needing a change of scenery, while suspicions amongst many pundits and fans is that maybe, just maybe, Hamilton has lost his edge.

Feeling the need for change, and the chance to answer those questions, Hamilton took the exceptionally brave choice to make the leap to Ferrari – uniting the sport’s most powerful brand of team and driver for what will be a movie-esque push to land Hamilton that elusive and fairytale eighth title.

It can’t be emphasised enough just how much gumption such a move took, shaking off the blanket of the comfortable surroundings of Mercedes to move into Charles Leclerc’s team, replete with a very different culture, car, methodology, and even an engine – Hamilton having only raced with Mercedes power for the entirety of his F1 career.

But make that leap Hamilton did and, after what he called a “brutal” pre-season of pre-season marketing and endless photoshoots, the racing finally began in Australia.

Aside from a moment of magic in the hot conditions of the Chinese GP Sprint, Hamilton has come out second-best to Leclerc at each of the race weekends so far – but the difference hasn’t been night and day.

In Bahrain, Hamilton was morose after qualifying – having been quicker than Leclerc in Q1 and three-tenths down in Q2, he failed to make the jump in Q3 as he improved by three-tenths. Leclerc found six-tenths – enough to set the third-quickest time, with Hamilton down in ninth.

Apologising to race engineer Riccardo Adami over team radio, Hamilton later said, “It’s just about my performance, poor performance.

“There’s no reasons – [I’m] just not doing the job.

“I’m just not doing a good enough job on my side so I’ve just got to keep improving.”

Asked what he can do to instigate said improvement, Hamilton responded: “I really don’t know. I don’t have a lot of answers for you guys, I just wasn’t quick today.”

It all sounds very similar to the end of 2024, doesn’t it? In Qatar last year, Hamilton confessed to “definitely not being quick anymore,” and, four race weekends into his time with his new team, the complaints are sounding quite similar.

After the initial joy of joining Ferrari, and having that almost-immediate moment of success in China, the fact that things don’t really seem to have changed much for Hamilton appeared to have hit him hard after Saturday. But, again, race day went better – he came home in fifth, just eight seconds behind Leclerc (albeit helped by a mid-race Safety Car).

Lewis Hamilton’s search for comfort at Ferrari

But, while things may look broadly the same on paper, Hamilton is merely at the start of what has been a pretty massive learning curve. He’s not unique on the grid in that regard, with the man he replaced at Ferrari – Carlos Sainz – also yet to hit the consistent vein of form at Williams that he had with the Scuderia.

Sainz has said he suspects it will take about half a season to acclimatise to his new environment and car, and to learn how to best exploit the foibles of the Williams after four years at Ferrari. Unlike Hamilton, age isn’t a potential hindrance for Sainz – the Spaniard is in his prime years, and the cries of many fans are for patience, in full expectation that he will unlock his car’s secrets. A matter of when, not if.

So why isn’t Hamilton being afforded this same benefit of the doubt?

The fact he is a seven-time F1 World Champion plays a part in that, of course, as does the fact that he is at a point where he is trying to shake off doubts that he has passed his peak, but there are several factors at play to slow down Hamilton’s acclimatisation.

In terms of the car, Hamilton spent 12 years on Carbon Industry brakes at Mercedes but is now adjusting to Brembo. Brake feel and confidence is imperative to a driver’s speed on corner entry and, combined with Hamilton also having to adjust to using engine braking – another big difference compared to Mercedes – is it really surprising that he doesn’t yet have relentless consistency?

“The car really does require a different driving style, and I’m slowly adjusting to that, and the set-up,” Hamilton explained to media, including PlanetF1.com, after the chequered flag.

“I’ve been a bit all over the place with it, a long way from Charles in the past two weekends, and then slowly migrating towards him, so if I start the weekend in a more convenient spot and apply the techniques I learnt this weekend, hopefully I will improve.

“I have never used engine braking before – for the past 12 years, we never used engine braking, but here, we use it a lot in the car.

“The brakes are so much different to what I had in the past; they move around a little bit more and, in the last stint, I had to use the rears to turn the car, but then at other times, you have to put all your weight on the fronts.

“There is a bigger balance window than I’m used to as well.

“It just feels so alien. Sometimes, I think we all get stuck in our ways, and very stuck, like, ‘No, I need to keep driving the way I’ve been driving. Just make the car come to me’.

“But that’s not working. So I am adjusting myself now to the car, and also, the way with the tools that they use, it just drives so much different.

“With all the ECU controls that we use, I have to use them a lot differently than what I had last.”

Ferrari’s leadership came in for some criticism over the weekend, with former Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemelo hitting out at what he branded a “lack of leadership” at Ferrari after the team appears to have taken a slight relative step backward over the winter.

If team boss Fred Vasseur – whose first input into the driver line-up was to spring a huge shock by tempting Hamilton away from Mercedes – has any reservations about his new star signing’s performances, he’s certainly not showing it.

Coming to the defence of Hamilton, Vasseur said it’s clear that there are a lot of habits Hamilton is having to evolve from.

“You won’t replace 12 years of collaboration in two weeks or in two races,” he said.

“For sure, we need to improve. But I think this is true for everybody in the team, in the paddock – the DNA for our sport is to try to do a better job.

“I think it’s good to have Lewis with this mindset, ‘Okay, I have to improve also myself, and to adapt myself to the car’.

“We will work on the car, build up the car to Lewis, but he has also to do a step. This, between us, is done in a positive way and a very constructive way.”

Hamilton’s doom-and-gloom demeanour was also greeted with a degree of satisfaction, with Vasseur saying it’s clear the seven-time F1 World Champion still has the hunger and fire to turn things around.

“Now, the fact that he was a bit down [Saturday] evening, I like it. Because if the guy is coming back the 10, and he said, ‘It’s a shame’ [with a shrug]…” he said.

“For sure, he was disappointed, because he was a much better all the weekend so far.

“Now we know that it happens like this in F1 today – that was not the case three or four years ago, that when you had five-tenths between the team[mates] because you make a mistake, you lost one position, one row.

“Today, you lose five-tenths, you can lose six or seven positions. I think Charles was [almost] on the first row, but if he was three or four hundredths slower, he would have been P6.

“It’s always relative. We have to stay calm in terms of judgment of the performance, because sometimes, for almost nothing, you can change a good weekend into a very poor one, and vice versa.

“I appreciated the direction of Lewis [Saturday]. I did my best to push him a little bit, and [Sunday], he was in a very good shape and very strong shape. Let’s start from there next week!”

What’s worth remembering is that Hamilton’s gloomy demeanour is nothing new – from his arrival in F1, he has worn his heart on his sleeve and it’s always been incredibly easy to tell what kind of mood he’s in.

Recently, former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley – who worked closely with Hamilton – revealed conversations he’s had with Hamilton in recent years on how the British driver processes disappointment and is able to compartmentalise.

In essence, Hamilton processes setbacks by leaning into his gloom, rather than attempting to put a cheery facade on top. By expressing his misery, allowing it to envelope him temporarily, his mental reset techniques then see him bounce back strongly for his next attempt.

It’s an approach that there’s clear, long-term evidence it’s worked for Hamilton – so let’s give Hamilton some time and patience before writing off his Ferrari move as a disaster.

His start to life at Ferrari hasn’t been great, no, but it also is very far from terrible.

Given that every race weekend will see his Mercedes familiarity fade that little bit more, there’s no reason to doubt that he can find the comfort he needs with Ferrari – perhaps not immediately, but as the season progresses.

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