If Lewis Hamilton’s misery at Ferrari continues, Ralf Schumacher can imagine that the Brit will reconsider his future
Will Lewis Hamilton throw in the towel at Ferrari this summer? That’s the concern of former driver Ralf Schumacher if the seven-time world champion’s sporting decline continues. Hamilton has struggled to get going since switching from Mercedes to Ferrari and has yet to score a win apart from the sprint race in Shanghai.
He has only narrowly beaten his teammate Charles Leclerc once in qualifying (see the duels), and apart from the sprint in China, the Brit has never finished ahead of his teammate. Most recently in Jeddah, Hamilton finished seventh, more than half a minute behind the Monegasque, who made it onto the podium.
“He just can’t get to grips with the car,” Schumacher said on Sky’s Backstage Boxengasse podcast, adding that the 40-year-old looks ‘totally down and helpless.’ ”We talk a lot about Lando [Norris], but it’s almost worse for him.”
“He’s slumped in on himself,” said the German, referring to Hamilton’s negative body language, and knowing from his own experience what it’s like ‘when you’re standing there at some point and you have no resources left and you’re constantly slowing down.’
Hamilton’s greatest successes are now four years behind him. He last fought for the world title in 2021 and has been struggling to catch up with Mercedes ever since, only sporadically finding his form and having major problems with teammate George Russell.
At Silverstone in 2024, he won his first Grand Prix in three years and proved to himself and the world that he still has what it takes. But Schumacher fears that the joy he felt back then is now slipping away.
“He’s a candidate – and I know that from my own experience,“ says Schumacher. ‘If things don’t pick up at some point, it’s no fun anymore. Then he’ll wake up one morning and think, ’Man, why am I doing this to myself? I’m not enjoying it anymore. I can’t do it anymore. I’m getting in the way of my team.’”
And if that continues until the summer break, “then I really see the danger that at some point he’ll say, ‘Look, I don’t want this anymore. I want to live my life now. I’m 40, I’m so rich, I’m not going to do this to myself anymore,’” said the German. “Because obviously, for some reason, it’s not working.”
However, Schumacher hopes that Hamilton and his team will “get back on track soon.” The victory in the sprint in Shanghai at least shows him that Hamilton can still deliver when the track and the car suit him. But that has been far too rare so far.
“What they had planned was a huge project. But at the moment, he’s a long way off.”
