{"id":666410,"date":"2026-05-12T17:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666410\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T17:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T17:10:15","slug":"lewis-hamilton-f1-retirement-decision-pinned-to-one-key-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666410\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton F1 retirement decision pinned to one key factor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has claimed Lewis Hamilton will retire from F1 when he realises he cannot win an eighth drivers&#8217; championship at Ferrari.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The Briton joined the Scuderia from Mercedes ahead of the 2025 season, ending an extremely fruitful 12-year stint with the Brackley-based squad that brought six of his seven titles and eight constructors&#8217; crowns, making it the most successful partnership in F1 history.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>However, his maiden campaign with Ferrari proved disastrous, finishing sixth in the drivers&#8217; championship without a single podium finish, marking the worst season of his career.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton has shown improved form in 2026, securing a podium in Shanghai and sitting fifth in the championship with 51 points after four races. Yet Steiner believes the 41-year-old&#8217;s future in the sport hinges entirely on his championship prospects.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a difficult one,&#8221; he told casino.org when asked if this campaign will be Hamilton&#8217;s last. &#8220;I think he&#8217;s doing pretty good this season. But I must say last year was very difficult for him. It was difficult for Ferrari as well.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was a lot of pressure bringing the seven-time world champion in, the GOAT [greatest of all time] in, and he was not performing.&#8221;\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Steiner, who departed Haas in January 2024 after eight years as team principal, suggested Hamilton no longer has anything to prove but remains driven by the desire to secure a record-breaking eighth title.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This year, it seems he has started the season a lot better,&#8221; he added. &#8220;But I think the question of how long he stays in F1 depends on how much success he wants to have, because he doesn&#8217;t have to prove anything to anybody anymore. He only wants to prove to himself that he can still do it.&#8221;\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The Italian singled out one scenario which will prompt the 105-time grand prix winner to call time on his illustrious career.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Steiner said: &#8220;At some stage, he will say he&#8217;s had enough of this, but I think when he realises that he cannot win the eighth world championship in a Ferrari, that is when he will say, &#8216;I want to stop&#8217;, and that&#8217;s when a seat will open up for [Oliver] Bearman.&#8221;\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has claimed Lewis Hamilton will retire from F1 when he realises he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-666410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666410","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=666410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}