Ferrari are reaching a critical point in their relationship with Lewis Hamilton after an underwhelming 2025 campaign.
Hopes were high for Lewis Hamilton at the start of his first campaign as a Ferrari driver.
Fred Vasseur’s outfit had narrowly missed out on the constructors’ championship the year before, and there was genuine belief that he and Charles Leclerc could guide the Scuderia to their first title in nearly two decades.
What’s followed is a disappointing season without a Grand Prix win and question marks over Leclerc’s commitment to Ferrari.
Position Drivers’ Championship PointsPts 1 324 2 299 3 255 4 212 5 165 6 121 7 78 8 70 9 39 10 37
The Monegasque driver doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, but Hamilton is at a point in his career where he can’t wait forever for Ferrari to work out what’s going wrong.
Hamilton’s contract runs until the end of next season, although the seven-time world champion could extend his stay by an extra year.
Hamilton is on course to become the fifth Ferrari driver since 1980 not to score a podium, and Ralf Schumacher has warned the team they can’t afford to repeat a mistake they made at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
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Photo by OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty ImagesRalf Schumacher warns Ferrari not to ignore Lewis Hamilton’s tyre requests
Hamilton was fastest in FP2 in Baku, but fell out of qualifying before the top 10 shootout and could only finish eighth in the race.
The 40-year-old questioned Ferrari’s tyre choices during qualifying, and speaking on the Backstage Boxengasse Podcast, Schumacher explained: “So you have to put yourself in his shoes, because with his experience, with his power, and he obviously writes emails about everything, submits reports, and is already helping to develop a new car.
“To be honest, even if I wasn’t a seven-time world champion, as everyone knows, I’ve only won a few Grand Prix races, but if I wanted a tyre, I got it. There was no discussion.
“If I said I was coming in to switch from rain tyres to slicks, there was no discussion either, because ultimately the driver is the one who has to implement what he knows best, what the conditions are like outside and who can best assess himself and the car.
“That means a normal engineer will never get in the driver’s way. But that would fit with the image that was often discussed with Toto Wolff. He says, ‘OK, drivers are here to drive, we don’t involve them at all, we just tell them what to do.’ And that’s always the case when Lewis comes in and says, ‘I’m this far away, now please tell me where.’
CategoryLewis HamiltonCharles Leclerc2025 points121165Grand Prix results*312Grand Prix qualifying413Grand Prix wins00Grand Prix poles01Grand Prix podiums05Best finish4th2ndDisqualifications11Retirements11Retirements (classified finish)00Fastest laps00Grand Prix points finishes1414Sprint results21Sprint Qualifying12Sprint wins10Sprint poles10Sprint podiums20The 2025 F1 teammate head-to-head battle of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc
*Both Ferrari drivers were disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix
“That’s conditional, that’s what a driver does, of course, but it was also a topic of discussion again this weekend. In my view, he has to assert himself and not look for the mistake elsewhere.
“Then qualifying would probably look different. That’s what you can expect from the seven-time world champion. And then you have to say that the interaction on Friday started off a bit better, but then it became critical again, followed by criticism of the team.
“So I don’t see a positive outcome for the combination. Ferrari has to do the work internally because otherwise, you end up tearing each other apart from the inside.
“That would be a great pity, because we were really getting on well. That would be a shame, because they have a car that really worked well on Friday.”
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Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari radio messages worry Formula 1 observers
A recurring trend throughout the season has been Hamilton’s radio communications with race engineer Riccardo Adami.
Hamilton worked alongside Peter Bonnington for more than a decade at Mercedes, and getting used to a new way to talk to the team with Ferrari is taking time.
Position Constructors’ Standings PointsPts 1 623 2 290 3 286 4 272 5 101 6 72 7 62 8 55 9 44 10 20
Juan Pablo Montoya has questioned Hamilton’s radio messages in Baku, suggesting that the team were treating him like a school child.
Not listening to Hamilton’s concerns might be a worry for the seven-time world champion.
However, Ferrari have far more data and information available to them than Hamilton in the car, but streamlining the way they work alongside each other can only benefit both parties.