Mercedes still has Hamilton’s back as Ferrari switch stings
Lewis Hamilton’s first year in red never quite caught fire. The seven-time world champion crossed to Ferrari for 2025 with a fanfare and a sea of scarlet scarves, but the results were stark: no podiums for the first time in his career and a comprehensive defeat to Charles Leclerc in-house, the gap at season’s end sitting at 86 points. There were flashes—the China Sprint win stood out—but too many weekends were punctured by misfires, including a bruising run of four straight Q1 exits across Sprint and Grand Prix qualifying as the season wound down.
Through it all, Mercedes didn’t exactly slam the door behind him. If anything, it’s been the opposite. The ties that delivered six of his seven world titles haven’t frayed; they’ve quietly tightened.
“We feel sorry for him on a human level, because we know how much heart and soul Lewis puts into his work, how committed he is, how much he trains,” Mercedes chief communications officer Bradley Lord said, speaking about Hamilton’s adaptation pains after the move. “Sometimes every driver has ups and downs, or phases where you just can’t get it all together, and that hits him hard. But we try to support him in our own way… Toto often travels with him from the races and they talk about it a lot and, yes, we try to encourage him.”
Support can be as simple as a conversation at altitude. Toto Wolff lifted the curtain on that rhythm earlier in the year, describing the familiar post-race debriefs that happen thousands of feet in the air. “He pops up in the office on the weekend! He speaks with the engineers, gets some food,” Wolff told the Wall Street Journal. “After many Grands Prix, he travels back with me. So we have the old gang: Valtteri Bottas, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton and me flying from the races.”
It’s a curious tableau for a season that’s been anything but comfortable for Hamilton. Ferrari offered a fresh canvas and the full weight of Maranello’s mythology, yet the painting didn’t quite match the palette. Leclerc, deeply bedded into the team and reliably quick, drove with a looseness Hamilton was still searching for. The SF-25’s peaks were enticing, but the valleys were unforgiving—and when this generation of cars snaps you off the balance beam, it doesn’t tend to hand you a soft landing.
Hamilton hasn’t hidden how much he’s disliked the ground-effect era introduced in 2022. “There is not a single thing I will miss about these cars,” he said in Abu Dhabi. “Literally, there’s nothing. I haven’t enjoyed it.” That’s an extraordinary admission from a driver who’s historically been able to make almost any package pliable. It also sharpens the focus on 2026, when the sport tears up the technical notes and rewrites the rules with new chassis and power unit regulations. If anyone circles calendar resets with a pen, it’s the guy whose career has been a masterclass in riding the waves of regulation change.
Inside Brackley, there’s zero sense of a closed chapter. Mercedes remains convinced the Hamilton who terrorised qualifying laps and sculpted races from the front is still there—just waiting for the right tools and rhythm. “We know that Lewis Hamilton can still be a benchmark and possibly will continue to be in this sport,” Lord said. “And we still believe he can do it.”
The belief is plainly mutual. Hamilton’s kept the walkway between Brackley and his world open, leaning on familiar voices even as he tries to knit himself into Ferrari’s fabric. It’s not betrayal; it’s just racing’s reality. Careers this long collect people, habits, and safe harbours. When the noise gets loud, you go where the signal’s clear.
Ferrari, for its part, still has a formidable pairing on paper. Hamilton and Leclerc head into 2026 together, a blend of scar tissue and raw speed that could yet be potent if the next rulebook delivers a car that turns in without biting back. Until then, the contrast is striking: Leclerc’s easy speed in red versus Hamilton’s graft to find the groove that used to come instinctively.
This season won’t define Hamilton, but it might be the one he uses as flint. The China Sprint win proved the spark is still there. The qualifying slide that followed showed how quickly momentum can evaporate if the car won’t talk back. Somewhere between those two poles is the driver who used to bend Sundays to his will.
Mercedes, interestingly, seems in no rush to pretend the past never happened. They’re still picking up the phone, sharing flights, and serving the odd plate in the engineering canteen. After all the trophies, it’s oddly simple: old connections, honest chats, and a belief that form isn’t finite.
If 2026 is the reset it promises to be, expect Hamilton to come out swinging. He won’t miss these cars. But everyone, including his former team, suspects he hasn’t forgotten how to make the next ones sing.
