By Admin 
In February 2024, the Formula One world lived through one of sport’s most dramatic developments in recent history. Lewis Hamilton, F1’s most decorated driver, announced a shock move to Scuderia Ferrari, the racing series’ most storied and successful outfit.
It was the biggest driver transfer of the 21st century, and the new alliance had all the potential for a blockbuster narrative arc: an all-time great seeking to clinch a record eighth title with the most passionately followed team on the grid before he bid adieu.
Glimpses of speed
Hamilton’s form had dipped since losing the 2021 championship in controversial circumstances, but he showed glimpses of speed in 2024, claiming two races after going winless in the preceding two years. Ferrari offered a fresh challenge, and nothing is bigger in F1 than winning a title for the Italian marque.
Ferrari, too, was on an upward swing, coming within 14 points of winning the 2024 constructors’ title. The team started strongly in the first half of 2022, when ground-effect cars were introduced, before floundering in 2023, but appeared to get back on the right track.
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Most seemingly promising ideas, however, look good on paper until they encounter the trials and tribulations of the real world. And now, just a year into the alliance, the Hamilton-Ferrari marriage is already showing signs of discord, and not everyone is happy in Maranello.
There have been indications throughout the year that the two parties are far apart in their ideas of how to go about things. The constant friction between Hamilton and his race engineer over strategy showed they had yet to gel as a unit. The British driver also spoke about working hard back in the factory to get the team to do things differently, based on his experience at Mercedes, which dominated the sport from 2014 to 2021.
Meanwhile, Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc has cut a frustrated figure in a car which hasn’t allowed him to fight for the world title, at a time when his contemporaries are thriving — Max Verstappen has already won four, while Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have headlined this season’s title fight.
After the most recent race in Brazil, where both Hamilton and Leclerc retired, the first clear evidence of tension emerged publicly.
Ferrari chairperson John Elkann rebuked his drivers for talking too much and not focusing on driving, while giving the team’s engineers a vote of confidence despite the car not being quick enough to win a race so far this year.
The double retirement in Sao Paulo also saw Ferrari fall from second to fourth in the constructors’ standings. It is now 36 points behind Mercedes in the race for the silver medal.
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“On one hand, we have our mechanics, who are basically winning the championship with their performance and everything that has been done on the pitstops,” Elkann said in reference to the team having the best average pit-stop time so far.
“If we look at our engineers, there’s no doubt that the car has improved. If we look at the rest, it is not up to par. And surely we have drivers for whom it is important that they focus on driving and talk less, because we still have important races and getting second place is not impossible.”
It was surprising to see such comments when it has been abundantly clear that the car was born with a fundamental design flaw, which has prevented the team from running it optimally.
Getting it wrong
For 2025, Ferrari introduced a new design philosophy in its quest for its first title since 2008, but it has backfired. The essence of the current ground-effect regulations is that the car’s ride height must be as close to the ground as possible to generate downforce.
Unfortunately, as early as the second race in China, Ferrari realised that it was going to be a long season. The weekend started promisingly when Hamilton won the Sprint from pole. However, all that hope came crashing down during the Grand Prix when Hamilton finished sixth and was then disqualified for excessive plank wear (the plank is a flat attachment on the car’s underside to regulate ground-effect use).
Troubled times: Just a year into the alliance, the Lewis Hamilton-Ferrari marriage is already showing signs of discord.
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To avoid a repeat, Ferrari had to raise the ride height, but this has come at a considerable cost: lost performance, which has held the scarlet cars back this season.
The problem is so pronounced that Ferrari’s engineers ask the drivers to ‘lift and coast’ very early in the races — this involves getting off the throttle early before braking for the corner, so the downforce reduces, preventing the car from hitting the ground and wearing the plank.
In Hungary, the one race where Ferrari genuinely looked quick, with Leclerc taking pole and leading the race for half-distance, the team struggled and had to make mid-race adjustments during the pit stop. One theory was that it had to run higher tyre pressures, which would have increased the ride height but compromised grip as the contact patch of the rubber on the track reduced. The result saw Leclerc slowly fall back and finish a forlorn fourth.
Now on the eve of another major regulatory overhaul for 2026, Ferrari is yet again at a crossroads.
Although the team switched focus early this season to the new car, the recent comments from the top honcho don’t contribute to a conducive environment for out-of-the-box ideas to develop.
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Even in a budget-cap era, when its financial muscle matters less, the team has among the best infrastructure, housed under one roof in Maranello. This should allow for closer integration among departments and put it at the forefront of innovation.
Woe is me: Charles Leclerc has often cut a frustrated figure this season because the car hasn’t allowed him to fight for the world title. |
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At the same time, the Scuderia is famously known for its politicking, and the team has often underachieved relative to the resources at its disposal. Especially when things are not going well on track, there has always been finger-pointing between various departments.
Although Hamilton has not been at his best this year, often slower by a few tenths of a second than Leclerc, aiming the guns at the drivers indicates misplaced priorities. Worse, it denotes a fundamental misunderstanding of where the problem lies.
Patience needed
Under team principal Fred Vasseur, who came in 2023, Ferrari made some changes that bore fruit last year. This year has not gone as it hoped, but the management needs to show patience, as getting an F1 team to the front takes time.
Unfortunately, for Ferrari, anything other than winning is not acceptable, and the pressure of being almost a national team of Italy doesn’t help its cause either. It has been nearly two decades since Ferrari last won a world championship, and it needs to hit the ground running next year when the new regulations kick in. For that, the team has to mend the fissures and put up a united front. Whether that happens remains to be seen.