Ferrari’s Medium Tyre Black Hole Swallows Hamilton in Vegas

Hamilton’s Vegas lowlight exposes a Ferrari mystery — and Bernie Collins wants answers fast

Lewis Hamilton walked into the neon haze of Las Vegas looking like a man ready to make something of a bruising season. He left with a couple of points, a promotion in the classifieds after post-race disqualifications, and a question mark the size of the Sphere hanging over Ferrari’s medium tyre performance.

Hamilton’s recovery on Sunday read better on paper than it felt inside the SF-25. After lining up at the back and moving to P19 when Yuki Tsunoda started from the pit lane, he carved forward with a long, tidy first stint on the hard tyre. The Ferrari looked honest there: consistent, composed, and quick enough to put the Sauber of Nico Hülkenberg under pressure.

Then came the mediums — and the whole thing fell flat.

Bernie Collins, the former McLaren performance engineer and ex-Aston Martin strategy chief, didn’t mince words on Sky’s coverage. In her view, Ferrari needs to urgently dig into what went wrong when Hamilton switched compounds.

“It was always going to be a tough race from P19,” she said, before pointing out that Hamilton’s hard-tyre running “looked quite good.” The strategy call was clear enough: try the undercut on Hülkenberg. It should have worked. “And the medium tyre just went from bad to worse for Lewis… the initial laps were slow, Hülkenberg protected the undercut, and in the final stint Lewis is dropping away. Something’s gone wrong on that medium stint — that’s why he’s so deflated.”

It was written all over him at the flag. Hamilton called it his “worst season ever” on Sky and told the BBC he wasn’t exactly looking forward to next year either. He’s been candid throughout 2025 — at times brutally so. From admitting early on he wasn’t doing a good enough job, to the Hungary quip about Ferrari “changing driver,” to calling the dream move a “nightmare” after Brazil, the honesty has tracked with the results.

And while raw speed hasn’t deserted him, the rhythm has. Vegas was the latest example. The long-run pace on hards hinted at a route through the midfield. But as the track gripped up and the mediums went on, Hamilton could do little against Hülkenberg’s Sauber. The McLarens’ post-race exclusions rescued him up the order, but didn’t lift the mood.

Jenson Button, who knows a thing or two about riding out rough patches, reckoned this was the first time he’s seen Hamilton truly drained this year. “He’s carried himself really well in a difficult season,” Button said. “This is the first time he’s looked seriously deflated. It gets to you. But he’s very good at turning it around for the next one.”

That’s the hope inside Ferrari, because the symptom here is familiar: getting the medium into its window on low-energy asphalt and then keeping it there. You don’t need a debrief transcript to guess what Monday looked like in Maranello — a lot of tyre temperature traces, out-lap deltas, and head-scratching at why a car that seemed happier on hards never lit up the yellow-walled set.

The sting? This wasn’t about luck. Hülkenberg didn’t fall back to them, and the undercut didn’t stick. Hamilton’s final laps, by his own admission, were miserable. For a team hunting big trophies again, that’s not a footnote; it’s a red flag.

Hamilton’s first season in red has, undeniably, been a grind. Charles Leclerc has had the upper hand in the standings, and with two rounds to go, Hamilton is still chasing. That’s fine in isolation — drivers change teams and take time to bed in — but the manner of these Sundays matters. Vegas felt avoidable.

Collins’ “urgent” is the right word. The SF-25 has shown it can be a sweet-handling thing in race trim, and when Ferrari’s execution is sharp, it pays. But the margin for error at the top is slim, and a medium-tyre black hole like this is the kind that can drag a driver’s season down with it — particularly when you’ve started at the wrong end of the grid.

The calendar flips quickly now. There isn’t much room for soul-searching, which might actually suit Hamilton. Historically, he’s done some of his best work when the noise is loudest and the window to answer it is shortest. If Ferrari can find the why behind Vegas, the how of a response is very much in his wheelhouse.

For now, the headline from the Strip isn’t the points salvaged. It’s the problem exposed.