Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 Season Has Been a Nightmare. But It Isn’t Over.

Lewis Hamilton’s affinity with Interlagos, the track that hosts the Brazilian Grand Prix, runs deeper than it would for most drivers.

Brazil was where Hamilton dramatically clinched his first F1 title at the last corner of the last lap of the last race in 2008, only his second season, to become the sport’s youngest world champion at the time.

At the home track of Hamilton’s racing hero, Ayrton Senna, he has won three times, including a remarkable charge through the field in 2021. One year later, Hamilton became an honorary Brazilian citizen, a gesture that meant a great deal to him.

But at Interlagos on Sunday, Hamilton was left reflecting on what has turned into one of the hardest seasons of his F1 career. With three rounds to go this season, Hamilton is still without a podium, marking the longest drought of his career and the longest wait for anyone to race for Ferrari.

That was hardly the anticipated script when Hamilton sealed his move. When the deal was announced in Feb. 2024, Hamilton spoke of a goal he could now fulfil by racing for Ferrari. For all the record-breaking success he had enjoyed with Mercedes, at the heart of the greatest dynasty in F1 history, the allure and prestige of Ferrari was too great to resist. As it has been for so many, for Hamilton, Ferrari was the “childhood dream.”

He used a very different word to describe 2025 in Brazil.

“This is a nightmare and I’ve been living it for a while,” Hamilton told Sky Sports. “The flip between the dream of driving for this amazing team, and then the nightmare of the results that we’ve had, the ups and the downs, it’s challenging.”

Brazil was a rough weekend for Hamilton. He exited in the second stage of both sprint qualifying and full qualifying. Although he recovered to seventh in the sprint, snatching two points, a clash with Franco Colapinto in the race after already dropping down the order left Hamilton with damage that would ultimately force him to park up and retire.

Interlagos summed up the juxtaposition of Hamilton’s first year at Ferrari. Racing there — especially in a Ferrari — meant a lot to Hamilton, who proudly wore the colors of the Brazilian flag on his helmet all weekend. But it turned into another joyless struggle to find comfort in the car, compounding his pace issues. Teammate Charles Leclerc also failed to finish after being caught in the incident involving Oscar Piastri and Kimi Antonelli while battling for second place.

John Elkann, Ferrari’s president, made a pointed comment following Ferrari’s miserable day at the track. Speaking at an Italian Olympic Committee event in Milan before next year’s Winter Olympics, Elkann praised Ferrari’s operations and car development before saying: “We have drivers who need to focus more and talk less, because we still have important races to come, and finishing second in the constructors’ isn’t impossible.”

The relationship between Hamilton and Elkann was instrumental in making his shock move to Ferrari a possibility. They met at a Google camp in Italy many years before conversations accelerated to pave the way for Hamilton’s move for 2025, uniting F1’s most successful driver and team. Elkann was there for Hamilton’s first day at Maranello back in January, witnessing a special moment in the F1 team’s recent history.

Elkann’s comment is likely intended to serve as a wake-up call before the final three races of the season. Although McLaren has long wrapped up the title, each position carries around $8million-$10m extra in prize money, and most teams have associated bonuses for their staff.

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Ferrari has slipped to fourth in the constructors’ championship, 36 points behind Mercedes in second and four behind Red Bull in third. McLaren, the team Ferrari ran close to for last year’s constructors’ title, has more than double the points out in P1. Anything but victory may go down as a bad year for Ferrari, so rich is its history and past success, but Elkann wanted to make clear there is still a lot to play for in these last three races.

Both Ferrari drivers posted on Instagram on Monday, a few hours after Elkann’s comments. “It’s uphill from now, and it’s clear that only unity can help us turn that situation around in the last three races,” Leclerc wrote. Hamilton wrote, “I back my team. I back myself. I will not give up. Not now, not then, not ever.”

But what is there for Hamilton to salvage from his rough, sobering first season at Ferrari?

He has previously used the word “rollercoaster” to describe this year. The joy of his sprint race win in China in March was quickly tempered by a double disqualification the next day in the grand prix, with the resulting ride height legality issue — the car could no longer run as close to the ground without the risk of failing technical checks, costing downforce as a result — compromising Ferrari until an upgraded rear suspension arrived in the summer. That didn’t stop miserable weekends in Hungary and Belgium from stopping Hamilton from quipping that Ferrari should consider changing the driver, not the car.

Hamilton has made steps toward Leclerc’s pace across the Ferrari garage this season. The average gap in qualifying was more than three-tenths of a second in Leclerc’s favor before Miami, but Hamilton has whittled that down to 0.180s. Hamilton explained earlier this year that he had experimented a lot with the setup on the car to try and find a good rhythm, a task made challenging by the nature of this year’s Ferrari that Leclerc described as requiring “extreme” setups. Building on that in the last three races will be an obvious goal for Hamilton.

There have been some positive signs. In Mexico, Leclerc and Hamilton qualified second and third, and Hamilton had grounds to feel aggrieved that no drivers received a penalty for cutting the first corner. But he also slipped up by not giving a place back to Max Verstappen while battling for third, resulting in a penalty that denied him the chance to fight for his first Ferrari podium.

Then there is the continued integration into Ferrari’s way of working. Hamilton made a concerted effort to get to know everyone at Maranello in his first days with the team — so much so that he picked up a cold, possibly from shaking so many hands — and had a motorhome at the attached private test track when he conducted his first test runs. But that adjustment was always going to be a season-long process.

“He’s improving in the composition of the team,” Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur said of Hamilton’s adjustment in an interview with The Athletic last month. “The team is improving in the composition of Lewis. So we have to make a kind of ‘mayonnaise’ now! We need to improve step by step.” The initial novelty of the move had to wear off eventually.

Lewis Hamilton drives out of the garage during qualifying in Sao Paulo, Brazil.Jean Carniel / AFP via Getty Images

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The reality for Hamilton is that no single result can fully rectify a tricky first year with Ferrari. The car hasn’t been in a position to give him the chance to fight for wins or podiums properly, let alone a championship, which was the ultimate goal upon making this move. To snare a podium in the final three races — remember, Hamilton charged from 10th to second in Las Vegas last year — would be a boost, yes. But it would not totally remedy the situation.

What may offer Hamilton some comfort is that 2026 should provide a complete reset. The FIA, F1’s governing body, will overhaul F1’s car design rules, giving every team the chance to start with a blank page and attempt to gain a jump on their rivals. Hamilton has appeared to struggle more with the current generation of F1 cars introduced in 2022, which rely on ground effect to generate downforce.

Hamilton’s commitment to Ferrari also remains strong. In Brazil, he batted away a question about sitting down with Ferrari to discuss his future, noting he had a long-term contract in place. He may be the second-oldest driver on the F1 grid at 40, but Hamilton continues to work incredibly hard to get every single bit out of himself and the team around him.

No matter how the Hamilton-Ferrari marriage ends, for better or for worse, the “nightmare” of 2025 will be an essential part of their shared story. Should next season provide an uplift in results, the lessons of this year will go down as growing pains; necessary setbacks that were better to get out of the way when not in a position to fight for a championship.

Right now, that is the best outcome for Hamilton if he is to fully realize all he dreamed of achieving in the famous red of Ferrari.