{"id":64809,"date":"2025-08-13T10:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/64809\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T10:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:16:07","slug":"ralf-schumacher-thinks-ferrari-privately-made-a-damning-lewis-hamilton-decision-a-long-time-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/64809\/","title":{"rendered":"Ralf Schumacher thinks Ferrari privately made a damning Lewis Hamilton decision ‘a long time ago’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lewis Hamilton has been involved in too many \u2018theatrics\u2019 at Ferrari this season, Ralf Schumacher says. The seven-time world champion entered the summer break at one of the lowest ebbs of his Formula 1 career.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Hungarian Grand Prix, a race where he started and finished a desperate P12, Hamilton<\/a> described himself as \u2018useless\u2019 and even suggested that Ferrari should change drivers. This has sparked speculation that he could retire prematurely.<\/p>\n

Schumacher says Ferrari aren\u2019t turning a \u2018blind eye\u2019 to Hamilton\u2019s comments<\/a>, even if they\u2019re clearly alarming. As it stands, there doesn\u2019t appear to be a realistic prospect of the 40-year-old leaving before the end of his contract in 2026.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Bild<\/a>, Schumacher suggested Hamilton may be \u2018too old\u2019 to adapt to a car that is well-suited to long-serving teammate Charles Leclerc<\/a>. It\u2019s hard to chart a line of clear progress from his debut in Australia until Hungary.<\/p>\n

Ralf Schumacher suspects Ferrari have already made Charles Leclerc their number one<\/p>\n

Schumacher was sceptical about Hamilton\u2019s Ferrari move<\/a> before the season started while many others expressed enormous excitement. It seems his concerns were well-founded.<\/p>\n

Despite his underwhelming form, Hamilton is trying to exert significant influence at Ferrari<\/a>. He\u2019s sent the team documents of feedback suggesting both mechanical alterations and structural changes.<\/p>\n

But Schumacher\u2019s theory is that Ferrari<\/a> have already decided to pin their hopes on Leclerc. The Monegasque has scored all five of the team\u2019s podiums this season. <\/p>\n

\"CharlesPhoto by Marco Canoniero\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Accounting for all the competitive sessions where both drivers have been classified, Leclerc leads the head-to-head 24-8.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said before the season that this could go wrong. At the moment, I see a lot of theatrics in him. He has slammed the team, criticised internally, struggled with the car \u2013 that doesn\u2019t help anyone. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe car suits Leclerc, not him. Maybe he\u2019s too old to adapt. Or maybe he just can\u2019t cope. I believe the decision to go with Leclerc was made a long time ago. But I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll throw in the towel during the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrari reject Lewis Hamilton\u2019s attempts to become \u2018shadow team principal\u2019<\/p>\n

On the evidence of the last five months or so, Leclerc is clearly the superior driver at Ferrari. But Hamilton has the strongest CV of any F1 driver ever.<\/p>\n

And there remains a possibility that Hamilton simply doesn\u2019t suit the ground-effect cars<\/a>. Perhaps, come next year, he\u2019ll look much more like his old self.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it seems some team members have lost confidence in their superstar signing. It\u2019s difficult to maintain faith when he criticises himself so harshly in the public domain.<\/p>\n

Hamilton is trying to become the \u2018shadow team principal\u2019 at Ferrari<\/a> by guiding the team\u2019s direction. If Schumacher is right, though, they will place more emphasis on Leclerc\u2019s feedback instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton has been involved in too many \u2018theatrics\u2019 at Ferrari this season, Ralf Schumacher says. The seven-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,13275,826,823,806,805,803,804,30966,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-64809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-charles-leclerc","11":"tag-ferrari","12":"tag-lewis-hamilton","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-ralf-schumacher","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}