Toto Wolff has weighed in on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari struggles
Driving style, mojo and nationality could all be playing a role in Lewis Hamilton’s slow start to life as a Ferrari driver according to his former Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff.
Hamilton’s move to Ferrari after 12 seasons and six World titles with Mercedes was expected to rejuvenate both the driver and the team as they chased championship glory.
Toto Wolff weighs in on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari struggles
Seven-time World Champion Hamilton won his most recent World Championship in 2020, while Ferrari’s barren run stretches back to 2008 with Kimi Raikkonen having won the title the year before.
But the hype of Formula 1’s most successful driver joining the sport’s longest-serving team has waned.
Although Hamilton has a Sprint pole and victory, the Briton is still chasing his first podium in red, never mind race wins or the title.
After 10 races, he is P6 in the standings, 119 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri.
It begs the question: what’s going on with Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari?
That was put to the 40-year-old’s former team principal at Mercedes, Wolff, in the recent Bloomberg Hot Pursuit podcast.
The Austrian believes there are probably three factors in play: a new car, a completely different environment having only ever raced for British teams in F1, and Hamilton is still finding his feet.
“You don’t unlearn driving that quickly,” said Wolff. “In 2021, he was great. Then the regulations changed, and it got a little more difficult, but he was still performing at a very high level.
“Just by changing teams, suddenly you don’t lose your skills.
“Everybody needs a period of adaptation: different car, different DNA in how the vehicle drives, a new engineering team that you need to start working together.
“Then you have to be involved in the continuous development of the car so it suits your driving style.
“It’s an all-Italian team, and he’s a British guy parachuted in there. And that takes time.
“Also, we’ve seen a bit of a pattern that Lewis, at the beginning of the season, needs to find his mojo and the second half of the season has always been very strong.
“So don’t ever write Lewis Hamilton off.”
Hamilton has been notably frustrated in recent weeks as he has made repeated calls for the SF-25 to be upgraded.
“We’re really in need of an upgrade and there’s a lot of things that need to change for us to compete at the front,” he reiterated in Canada.
“I think we have something coming hopefully next week, but I don’t know if it’s much, I don’t know how much it is, I don’t think it’s going to be a lot.
“So it’s just one of those years.”
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has confirmed that an upgrade is coming, it could even be on the car at the next race in Austria.
“We will have an upgrade soon, before the UK. And, perhaps, another one a bit later,” Vasseur said. “But, honestly, today, I think there is much more in the execution and what you are getting from the car than in the potential of the car itself.”
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