Esteban Gutierrez sees through the noise: Hamilton’s Ferrari year isn’t the disaster the table says it is
On paper, this wasn’t what anyone expected when Lewis Hamilton pulled on red overalls. Twenty grands prix into his first season with Ferrari, there’s no podium to show for it, and the lows have at times been unflattering. Mexico summed it up: third on the grid, running third on merit, then a 10-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage over Max Verstappen. Eighth at the flag, more frustration logged.
But if you ask Esteban Gutierrez — who’s lived Ferrari from the inside and knows how Mercedes hums too — the headline stat is misleading. He thinks Hamilton’s season looks worse than it truly is, because driving for Ferrari isn’t just about mastering a car. It’s about adapting to a way of racing that’s as singular as the team’s history.
“I was at Ferrari, and I understand the differences of an English team towards an Italian team,” he said on F1 Nation. “Ferrari… there’s a lot of passion. It’s a well-organised mess.” That’s said with affection, not derision. As Gutierrez sees it, winning with Ferrari demands a different kind of wiring — not better or worse, just different — and even the greats have needed time to sync with it.
This is the context that matters when you assess Hamilton’s red baptism. The early part of 2025 was bumpy and, at times, weary-looking; the second half has shown more bite. In Mexico, before the penalty, there was pace and authority — enough to suggest the pieces are beginning to fit together, even if the result didn’t say so.
Gutierrez has a rare vantage point. Fifty-nine race starts with Sauber and Haas, a spell as Ferrari test and reserve driver, and a development role with Mercedes on the other side of the cultural fence. He knows how British teams operate — the rigor, the systems, the predictability. He also knows why Ferrari is built the way it is, and why lifting it is fiendishly hard.
That’s why he bristles at the idea that Hamilton should’ve transplanted a Mercedes-style structure into Maranello. “Not necessarily,” he said when asked if bringing engineers would have helped. “If you bring a structure from another team, a very different culture, and you put that into a team that is very different around it, it may not work. You have to build from scratch and understand the culture.” Translation: you don’t install a new operating system overnight — especially not at Ferrari.
Hamilton hasn’t exactly walked into a room of strangers. There are familiar handshakes in the building — and a relationship with team boss Fred Vasseur that dates back to junior single-seaters — but it’s still a massive shift for a driver who spent more than a decade inside Mercedes’ meticulous orbit. That kind of reflex-level trust doesn’t grow in a preseason. It takes races, rows, data, and the occasional penalty-riddled Sunday to learn where the edges are.
None of that excuses everything. Ferrari and Hamilton have left results on the table this year, and the numbers are the numbers: with four rounds left, Hamilton trails Charles Leclerc by 64 points. Leclerc, the lifer, has been the team’s reference through the ongoing yo-yo of form. That’s a credit to the Monegasque and a reminder of how steep Hamilton’s climb still is. But it’s also not a surprise: drop any superstar into Ferrari and history suggests there’ll be a settling-in tax.
What Gutierrez is arguing for is patience, because the trajectory looks healthier than the logbook. The car’s sweet spot is being found more often. Hamilton’s feedback loop with the engineers sounds tighter. And when he’s felt comfortable — his own words, recently — the speed’s been right there.
It’s the oldest truth in Maranello: Ferrari magnifies everything. The wins glow brighter. The hiccups boom louder. And the adaptation game is more public than anywhere else. Hamilton knew that when he signed. The seven-time champion didn’t come for easy; he came for different.
So yes, the stat line is blunt. No, it doesn’t tell the whole story. The process — that overused word that happens to fit here — is still running. If the recent trend continues, 2025 may end with more promise than pain, and 2026 becomes the real test of whether Hamilton has tuned himself to Ferrari, and Ferrari to him.
Gutierrez, at least, is betting the human part of this equation still counts. “Lewis is very smart,” he said. “He knows how to win.” If you believe that, then this season — messy, maddening, occasionally encouraging — might just be the groundwork rather than the punchline.
