Lewis Hamilton\u2019s dream move to Ferrari turned into a nightmare over the course of the F1 2025 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The really worrying thing? It could get even worse if the Mercedes team he left behind ends up dominating in F1 2026\u2026<\/p>\n
Lewis Hamilton facing the final insult in F1 2026<\/p>\n
A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com\u2019s conclusions from the 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix<\/a><\/p>\n Should Lewis Hamilton be regretting his move to Ferrari right now?<\/p>\n It\u2019s a difficult question to answer.<\/p>\n To describe it as a mistake would be to dismiss the very good reasons he had to walk away from Mercedes at the time he did.<\/p>\n At its core this move was all about finally escaping the ghosts of Abu Dhabi 2021<\/a>, detaching himself from the crushing underachievement of the final years of his Mercedes tenure, breathing different air and completely changing the tone of the tail end of his career.<\/p>\n It was about a search for fulfilment \u2013 completion \u2013 and being unable to walk away from F1 without first having a taste of life inside the sport\u2019s most sacred team.<\/p>\n Like him or not \u2013 and there are many who don\u2019t \u2013 there was something irresistibly life affirming about an elite athlete towards the end of his career following his heart and finally turning a long-held ambition into reality.<\/p>\n Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> to your favourites list for news you can trust.<\/p>\n It has not worked out as he hoped, of course, mostly because of the great irony that the main problem he encountered at Mercedes \u2013 a badly born, fundamentally flawed car with its biggest weakness baked in for the season \u2013 is identical to the one he has found at Ferrari.<\/p>\n Little wonder, then, that it looks as though the problem lies entirely with him.<\/p>\n How could it not when the exact same issues have followed him from team to team, from car to car?<\/p>\n Put simply, there were a variety of reasons \u2013 not all related to competitiveness \u2013 behind Hamilton\u2019s decision to sign on the dotted line with Ferrari in the winter of 2023\/24.<\/p>\n To judge it purely through the prism of results on track \u2013 even if that, of course, should always be considered the ultimate metric \u2013 is to overlook his motive for becoming a Ferrari driver.<\/p>\n So, no, perhaps there will be no regrets from that perspective.<\/p>\n But from a competition standpoint? And his stated desire to get that elusive eighth title?<\/p>\n Then it gets complicated.<\/p>\n Looking for a way out of Mercedes in response to two consecutive winless seasons in 2022\/23 seems more than a touch hasty \u2013 an emotional spasm of a decision \u2013 now that 2026, and the promise offered by the new regulations, is on the horizon.<\/p>\n Who knows? Ferrari might just ace the new rules from the start of next season. Maybe. Possibly. Perhaps.<\/p>\n But it seems quite certain that Mercedes will with rumours persisting for some time that the team\u2019s preparations for 2026 are more advanced<\/a> than most.<\/p>\n More than once this season Hamilton has spoken of his determination to end his Ferrari career on a happy note and his \u201crefusal\u201d to follow in the footsteps<\/a> of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, established champions who failed to win the title with Ferrari.<\/p>\n The difference on this occasion is that at least Fernando and Seb started well at Ferrari.<\/p>\n Alonso and Ferrari were a united force right up until Fernando lost the title at Abu Dhabi in 2010, after which he could never quite bring himself to forgive and forget.<\/p>\n Vettel, meanwhile, was doomed almost from the beginning after finding that the management team that originally signed him had been replaced by the time he arrived.<\/p>\n Yet his three wins in 2015 made for a happy enough start before the relationship between team and driver never quite recovered after serious reservations \u2013 on both sides \u2013 developed during a difficult second season in 2016.<\/p>\n Hamilton\u2019s Ferrari experience, in contrast, has been nothing but misery from the moment the SF-25 was launched in February, resulting in him reaching breaking point in record time.<\/p>\n That they already seem thoroughly fed up of each other even before the end of his first season does not suggest that this situation is salvageable.<\/p>\n Maybe the real mistake Hamilton made was refusing to accept, as he neared his 40th birthday, that his only shot at an eighth world championship came and went<\/a>\u00a0in the concocted drama of Abu Dhabi 2021.<\/p>\n If only he had been more honest with himself \u2013 acknowledged that he was getting old and merely wanted \u201ca blast in the red car and then sayonara\u201d, as Mark Webber famously said of Vettel in 2014 \u2013 rather than hanging everything on another championship, his current predicament would have been easier to take for all concerned.<\/p>\n The worst-case scenario for him now?<\/p>\n Watching the car he walked away from, the car that could so easily have been his, storming to the title in George Russell\u2019s hands<\/a> next season.<\/p>\n Now that would be the final insult.<\/p>\n Think Hamilton regrets his Ferrari move now? Just wait until 2026.<\/p>\n Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.<\/p>\n You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!<\/p>\n