Martin Brundle does not accept that Lewis Hamilton is struggling at Ferrari just because he needs time to adapt to his new car. It has been a difficult first few races with the team as the seven-time Formula 1 champion has generally lacked pace.
The exception was in the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix last month. Hamilton found a setup that worked for him and he took full advantage, qualifying on pole for that short-form race and turning it into his maiden victory as a Ferrari driver.
Other than that, though, there has been little for the Brit to smile about and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was another forgettable event. He qualified seventh and finished there, unable to make progress while team-mate Charles Leclerc finished third to record Ferrari’s first podium of 2025.
Team principal Frederic Vasseur was keen to protect his driver and said: “It was a bit up and down. It was not that he was always off the pace, but let me discuss it with him first. Perhaps it is his confidence with the car, and perhaps with himself also as everything is new.”
The Frenchman referred to a common theory that the root cause of Hamilton’s struggles is his car and that he is finding it tough to adapt to Ferrari machinery. While it almost certainly is a factor, former F1 driver Brundle finds it tough to believe that it is the sole reason.
“Fred summed it up, it was a bit up and down,” he said on the Sky Sports broadcast after the conclusion of the Jeddah race. “He ended up 31 seconds behind Charles Leclerc, his team-mate. He had some traffic because he was further down the grid so we can take some off for that, but it was up and down.
“I struggle to buy into, ‘He doesn’t understand the car, it’s a new car’. We are knocking on the door of May and they had all the pre-season stuff. I just think that Lewis hasn’t gelled with this car and I don’t think he’s going the right way on the setup.
Formula 1 fans can watch every practice, qualifying and race live with Sky’s new Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle in a new deal that saves £192.
As well as Sky Sports access, this includes more than 100 TV channels and free subscriptions to Netflix and Discovery+.
“From what I’ve heard from people at Mercedes, Lewis liked the car a certain way and he obviously can’t get the car there, where he needs it. It’s difficult days.”
Colleague Natalie Pinkham, who was leading the conversation, attempted to offer a defence of Hamilton by saying it must be tough for the Brit to get used to how things work at Ferrari after so many years racing for Mercedes and spending his whole F1 career before now driving cars powered by engines made by the Silver Arrows.
But, in response, Brundle pointed out two examples of much younger and far less experienced racer adapting to their new surroundings a whole lot faster. He added: “It took Ollie Bearman a day here last year [in a substitute appearance for Ferrari], but then he wasn’t relearning a car, he was just getting in and learning a car.
“[Kimi] Antonelli has got used to working with Bono [Hamilton’s former Mercedes race engineer Peter Bonnington] quite quickly and working with that car, but he did a lot of testing last year. But I struggle to buy into that, honestly, but we know Lewis is better and Lewis is faster than that. So something is not working there.”
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
