Lewis Hamilton’s age is “the elephant in the room” when it comes to his challenging start to life at Ferrari in the F1 2025 season.
That is the opinion of Sky F1 pundit and Mercedes simulator driver Anthony Davidson, who believes Hamilton “has never been the same driver” since F1’s ground-effect rules were introduced in 2022.
Lewis Hamilton’s age ‘the elephant in the room’ at Ferrari
Hamilton, who turned 40 in January, has had a largely disappointing start to his Ferrari career since his blockbuster move from Mercedes over the winter.
The British driver has struggled to adjust to his new surroundings with the first half of Hamilton’s season defined by a series of tense exchanges with his new race engineer, Riccardo Adami, over team radio.
Despite being the most statistically successful driver in F1 history, with a joint-record seven World Championships and 105 race victories to his name, Hamilton has been restricted to just two wins since the beginning of the 2022 season.
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In an interview last week, Hamilton admitted that life at Ferrari is “not at all what I expected” with the experience “more intense in so many areas.”
Appearing on Sky F1’s coverage of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Davidson, who made 24 F1 appearances between 2002 and 2008 before enjoying a successful career in endurance racing, believes Hamilton has “never” hit the same heights personally since F1’s move to ground-effect cars in 2022.
And he believes the Ferrari driver’s advanced age is “the elephant in the room” this season, arguing that it is inevitable for an athlete to decline as he grows older.
Put to him that Hamilton may have underestimated the challenges of moving from Mercedes to Ferrari, Davidson said: “I don’t think he would be surprised by that. I’m not surprised to hear that he found it difficult and very different.
“We all know what Ferrari is like, at least from the outside.
“We have a few friends, ex-colleagues that are on the inside and they confirm the beliefs from in the paddock that it’s a pressure cooker.
“There’s a high expectation on the Italian national team to perform and the request of the standards are incredibly high.
“And now you’ve got a seven-time World Champion arriving on the scene as well, so naturally the expectations are on Lewis’s shoulders and all the fans, the Tifosi, expecting results.
“So he knew what he was walking into, but it’s never easy.
“As a driver, you know the challenges of changing teams. Even changing car to car, like we’ll see next year with the rules changing and like we saw in 2022.
“For me, Lewis has never been the same driver since we saw the 2022 regulations come along and he’s had to work harder than ever before to rework his style that he’s done many times before in Formula 1.
“The cars have changed a long way since the normally aspirated V8 and the grooved tyres that he once drove, for example, and he’s had to reinvent himself along the way.
“This is just another hurdle that he’s having to overcome.
“And I don’t mind saying it because it’s the elephant in the room, and I’ve been there myself as a driver: age is a factor as well.
“I feel like this time of reflection for him, as an athlete ages, it does [affect performance]
“Whatever anyone says – even himself, others that are very involved with Lewis, fans – they won’t understand where I’m coming from, but I’ve lived and breathed it as an athlete. I’m now retired at 46.
“You start asking yourself questions. It’s only natural.”
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Davidson’s comments come after Hamilton revealed that he is embracing a team-leadership role in his bid to turn his Ferrari career around, holding various meetings with senior figures and submitting a number of “documents” proposing improvements to both the team and the car.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at the recent Belgian Grand Prix, Hamilton said that his willingness to “go the extra mile” at Ferrari is driven by his reluctance to follow in the footsteps of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, established champions who failed to add to their title tallies at Maranello.
He said: “The reason for it is that I see a huge amount of potential within this team. The passion? Nothing comes close to that.
“It is a huge organisation and there’s a lot of moving parts and not all of them are firing on all the cylinders that need to be.
“That’s ultimately why the team’s not had the success that I think it deserves.
“So I feel that it’s my job to challenge absolutely every area, to challenge everybody in the team, particularly the guys that are at the top making the decisions.
“If you look at the team over the last 20 years, they’ve had amazing drivers.
“You’ve had Kimi [Raikkonen, 2007 World Champion], you’ve had Fernando, you’ve had Sebastian. All world champions.
“However, they didn’t win a World Champion[ship] with Ferrari. And I refuse for that to be the case with me, so I’m going the extra mile.
“I’ve obviously been very fortunate to have had experiences in two other great teams.
“And whilst things are for sure are going to be different, because there’s a different culture and everything, I think sometimes if you take the same path all the time, you get the same results, so I’m just challenging certain things.
“They’ve been incredibly responsive. We’ve been improving in so many areas, through marketing and everything we’re continuously delivering for sponsors, the way the engineers continue to work.
“There’s lots of work and improvements to be made, but very responsive and I guess ultimately just trying to really, really create allies within the organisation and and get them gee’d up, get them pushing.
“I’m here to win. And I don’t have as much time as this one here [Andrea Kimi Antonelli], so it’s crunch time.
“I truly believe in the potential of this team. I really, really believe that they can win multiple World Championships moving forward.
“They already have an amazing legacy, but during my time that’s my sole goal.”
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