Lewis Hamilton revealed he ‘doesn’t blame’ Formula 1 fans for not understanding how long it would take for him to become a success at Ferrari after a disappointing 2025 campaign.
The seven-time world champion made a blockbuster move to the Italian outfit this year, after 12 successful seasons with Mercedes which yielded six titles adding to his 2008 crown with McLaren.
But Hamilton has largely found it tough at Ferrari, as he is sixth in the championship, 64 points behind team-mate Charles Leclerc, and yet to score a grand prix podium after 20 rounds.
His Shanghai sprint win proved to be an anomaly, but optimism is still high for the 40-year-old because F1 will introduce a new ruleset in 2026 which provides the opportunity to start from scratch.
So when Ferrari Magazine told Hamilton that those familiar with F1 should know how long it takes to adapt to a new team, the Briton said: “That’s not many people. Only when you’re inside a team can you really, truly understand how it works and how F1 works.
“You can’t imagine how the machine really operates otherwise. I’ve been in F1 for so long, but when I came to this team it really was different again.
“So I don’t blame people for not knowing. All I can do is continue to focus on the things that I can control. How I prepare, and work with the team. How I show up each day and stay positive.”
Hamilton spoke about the “cultural differences” at Ferrari and how it’s not the first time that he and his colleagues have had to adapt to one another, with Niki Lauda being a previous example.
Lauda was a non-executive chairman at Mercedes and instrumental in persuading Hamilton to make the shock move from McLaren for 2013, with the pair then forging a close friendship.
That was despite a previous conception, as Hamilton revealed “Niki was part of a world that couldn’t adapt to me being different” when he made his F1 debut in 2007. It’s because Hamilton turned many heads given his working-class, mixed-race background that isn’t typical of somebody within the championship.
He quickly removed any doubts though, particularly those of Lauda who won his first F1 title with Ferrari 50 years ago before more championship glory in 1977 and 1984.
“I heard negative things, though I’d always had an admiration for him as a three-time world champion,” said Hamilton of Lauda, who died in 2019 at the age of 70.
“He’s one of the true icons of our sport. Then he’s on the phone telling me why I should come to the team and then when we finally met we had a really good conversation. He said, ‘you’re just like me, you’re a racer to the core’.
“It wasn’t until we had that meeting that those barriers came down, that the stereotyped view he may have had was dealt with. After that we would travel to races together and he’d fly us places all the time.”
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