Doornbos on Hamilton: the rookie error, the Monza blow, and why 2026 keeps him in red
Monza tends to shrink a season into one afternoon. For Ferrari it’s either absolution or autopsy, and this year it’s Lewis Hamilton tiptoeing into the cauldron with a bruised debut campaign, a grid penalty, and a very public critique ringing in his ears.
Robert Doornbos didn’t pull punches after Zandvoort. The former F1 driver watched Hamilton’s Dutch Grand Prix end in the Turn 3 barriers after the Ferrari slid onto the painted lines and snapped away. The seven-time champion apologised immediately; Doornbos saw something deeper.
“I still can’t believe what he did on race day,” he said on The Pit Lane podcast. “That would happen to a rookie, not to one of the all-time greats in Formula 1.”
Fifteen races in, Hamilton’s Sunday scoreboard with Ferrari still doesn’t feature a grand prix podium. The body language hasn’t been subtle either. “I’ve seen a different Lewis many times,” Doornbos added. “Head up in the Mercedes days, and now it’s the hoodie on, on his little scooter, going from A to B. He looks isolated. Bit lonely, disappointed with himself.”
It’s a brutal read, but it chimes with what the paddock has sensed: a driver searching for rhythm at 40, wrestling with a car that hasn’t met the hype, and a season that’s handed out far more questions than answers. Doornbos described Hamilton as “a spiritual guy” who can drift into unhelpful headspace and suggested Frederic Vasseur has been working to pull him back out. That, he stressed, shouldn’t be necessary. “Come on, it’s a seven-time World Champion. You shouldn’t tell him how to drive a racecar… but at the moment, not much strength to see.”
And yet, for all the theatre, Doornbos doesn’t buy the doomsday scenario. Retirement? A clean break after one year in red? No chance, in his view — because 2026 looms like a reset button the size of Monza’s main grandstand.
“If the rules wouldn’t change in ’26 I would say, as Ferrari and Lewis, let’s probably sit down. ‘Are we still motivated enough to continue this journey?’” he said. “But if Ferrari manages to build a good engine for the ’26 rules, and suddenly Lewis can sniff again the taste of victory, he might come back to his old Lewis driving style.”
That bet on the next cycle is the quiet throughline of Hamilton’s move. New power unit regs, fresh aero constraints, a chance to reshuffle the deck — and Ferrari, historically, never far from the sharp end when the rulebook gets rewritten. Hamilton’s contract runs multi-year with options, and Doornbos is convinced the 2026 horizon is too tempting to walk away from, even if the present is ragged. “Lewis is doubting himself,” he said, pointing out how quickly the sport swings from crowning the next big thing — name-checking Isack Hajar’s breakthrough podium — to questioning its long-time headline act. “But now it’s, he’s missing it.”
Before all that, there’s the small matter of Monza. Hamilton lands with a five-place grid penalty for a yellow-flag infringement on the laps to the grid at Zandvoort, a self-inflicted wound that will cap his starting spot even if the car suddenly lights up in qualifying. Best-case projections have him no higher than sixth on Sunday’s grid. For Ferrari, that’s a dull thud before the tifosi have even found their seats.
“A big one in Monza,” Doornbos said of the penalty. “We all know Ferrari — if they win in Monza, the whole season is covered. Everybody’s happy. The tifosi forgets everything. But to be honest, with this car, I don’t see them winning in Monza.”
It’s harsh, but it’s also fair. Ferrari’s 2025 has been a mosaic of near-misses and unforced errors, punctuated by the odd flash of pace that never quite hangs together over a race distance. You can’t engineer atmosphere points at Monza. You either deliver or you get swallowed by the weight of expectation and a sea of red flares.
Hamilton’s task this weekend is simple and complicated all at once: qualify cleanly, cut through on Sunday, keep it tidy. If the top step isn’t realistic, a combative drive into the thick end of the points would at least steady the ship and give Maranello something to build on. And if you’re looking for green shoots, they’re there in the shape of 2026. That’s the carrot. That’s why he won’t be hanging up the balaclava anytime soon.
What’s left is the part Hamilton controls: the noise around him. The hoodie, the scooter, the head down — all cosmetic until the visor drops. Monza will tell us whether Zandvoort was a blip or a pattern. And it’ll tell Ferrari whether this story can still be written their way before the new rulebook arrives.
