Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton has vowed to “keep going even when it’s difficult” ahead of the resumption of the F1 2025 season at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Hamilton has endured a challenging first season at Ferrari, failing to register a podium across his first 14 appearances for his new team.
Lewis Hamilton: ‘We have to keep going even when it’s difficult’
The seven-time World Champion’s season slumped to a new low at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before the summer break, earlier this month.
Hamilton could only manage 12th on the grid in Budapest on a day team-mate Charles Leclerc claimed Ferrari’s first pole position of the season.
Hamilton cut a dejected figure after qualifying, repeatedly referring himself as “useless” before suggesting that the team should consider replacing him.
Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc: Ferrari head-to-head scores for F1 2025
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
He remained downbeat after the race the following day when he appeared to cast doubt on his participation in the rest of the F1 2025 season, quipping that he would “hopefully” be back after the summer break.
Hamilton, who previously hinted that he could sit out the end of his final season with Mercedes in 2024, later clarified his position, insisting that “the fight’s not over” and appealing to his fans to “don’t count me out.”
In a fresh update on social media on Monday morning, Hamilton vowed to “keep going even when it’s difficult.”
He wrote: “I’m always so grateful for this time, for the opportunity to rest and recharge.
“There’s a lot I’ve been meditating on. Every one of us is up against so much, both individually and globally.
“It’s so important that we embrace the light of truth and love and take care of ourselves so that we can better take care of others.
“We can’t look away. We have to keep going, even when it’s difficult.”
Hamilton’s comments come just days after Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, claimed that the seven-time World Champion “exaggerates the problems he sees” with the SF-25 car, with his “extreme” comments to the media only worsening the situation.
Asked how he can help make Hamilton more comfortable at Ferrari, Vasseur told German publication Auto Motor und Sport: “Stay calm.
“Build on the fact that he has already taken the first step. Don’t let things like what happened in Budapest get you down.
“Lewis is very self-critical. He is always extreme in his reactions. Sometimes he is too hard on the car, sometimes on himself.
“He wants to get the most out of himself and everyone in the team.
“You have to calm him down and explain to him that in Q2 [in Hungary] he was only a tenth of a second behind the driver [Leclerc] who later took pole position. That’s no big deal.
“The message he sends out only makes things worse.
“Most of the time, he’s only that extreme with the press. By the time he comes into the briefing room, he’s usually calmed down again. That’s just his way.
“For me, it’s no big deal. He demands a lot. From others, but also from himself. I can live with that.
“Nico Hulkenberg was the same when he drove for me in Formula 3. He demanded an awful lot from the team, but he was also there every morning at 6.30 a.m.”
He added: “We solve the problems step by step. They’re not huge, they just look that way.
“If the braking system isn’t quite how the driver would like it, then maybe half a tenth is lost there.
“From the outside, it’s often difficult to quickly identify exactly where he’s losing that half-tenth.
“Such a minimal time difference can ruin your whole weekend. It can be the difference between Q2 and Q3.
“Lewis sometimes exaggerates the problems he sees in the car.
“The team then naturally wants to respond and everyone jumps on the problem.”
More on Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari from PlanetF1.com
It is unclear if relations between Hamilton and Vasseur, who oversaw the driver’s title-winning GP2 season as boss of the ART Grand Prix team in 2006, have become strained as the F1 2025 campaign has developed.
In the aftermath of the Miami Grand Prix in May, Hamilton revealed publicly that he told Vasseur to “calm down” and “don’t be so sensitive” after a race in which he was heard having a number of tense exchanges with his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, over team radio.
Vasseur and Hamilton were also spotted having an animated discussion inside Ferrari’s hospitality unit after the race in Florida.
However, Hamilton spoke in support of Vasseur when reports emerged at the Canadian Grand Prix in June that the team boss’s position was under threat, claiming the Frenchman is “the main reason” he joined Ferrari.
Vasseur went on to sign a multi-year contract extension with Ferrari on the eve of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
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