Sky F1 verdict: What Lewis Hamilton could have done differently in his first Ferrari season

F1 | It’s not all Ferrari’s fault: one thing Hamilton could have done upon arriving at Maranello

From the UK, pundits are convinced: Lewis Hamilton could have achieved better results at Ferrari if he had done one key thing upon joining the team. The “Hamilton – Ferrari” pairing hasn’t clicked during this first year of collaboration, which is now drawing to a close. The seven-time world champion has struggled to find both a rhythm with the car and perhaps with the team itself. Sky Sports UK suggests that the situation might have been very different if the 1985-born Briton had arrived at Maranello with part of his trusted team.

Lewis Hamilton has endured a challenging debut season with the Scuderia, failing to secure even a single podium in an official Grand Prix. In doing so, he has already set a record for the longest streak without a podium at the start of a Ferrari career, with Abu Dhabi still to come.

The British driver has often appeared visibly frustrated, as Ferrari’s season heads toward a now-confirmed fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship. Attention is now shifting to 2026, a crucial year for both Hamilton and the Scuderia.

Brundle on Hamilton’s first season

Analyzing the situation on Sky Sports F1, Martin Brundle highlighted both Lewis Hamilton’s potential and the difficulties he has faced in this first year at Ferrari. “I think Lewis went there expecting to see how Ferrari would evolve, working with an eye on 2026: the biggest change in Formula 1 history, all focused in a single winter,” Martin Brundle said.

How Lewis Hamilton’s 2025 could have been different

“But it was tougher than he imagined, I’m sure of that, and certainly more difficult than he hoped. He wanted to arrive and do what Michael Schumacher did. But Michael came with Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, both already with him at Benetton, with Jean Todt, with Stefano Domenicali, and of course, with Ferrari’s brilliance as a team.”

“And even then, it still took several years to revive Ferrari,” Martin Brundle continued. “I also think Lewis needed more people around him. He was so immersed in the Mercedes world that probably thousands of things happened around him every day without him even realizing it.”

“In the end, he went there practically alone. It would have been fantastic if he could have brought Bono, his former race engineer now with Kimi Antonelli, for example, or one or two other key people,” concluded the British journalist, hinting at how different Lewis Hamilton’s first year at Ferrari might have been if he had brought some of his trusted staff with him.

As the curtain falls on a disappointing first chapter, Martin Brundle’s analysis has reignited the debate: could a little piece of the Mercedes family have transformed Lewis Hamilton’s debut season from struggle to success?