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Lewis Hamilton’s First Months in Red Threaten to Become 2025’s Biggest Let-Down

Lewis Hamilton’s headline-grabbing switch from Mercedes to Ferrari was billed as the blockbuster move that would jolt both the driver and the Scuderia back to championship-winning form. So far, though, the partnership has sputtered badly—and fans have noticed. In a fresh supporters’ poll, Hamilton topped the “negative surprises” category, collecting 31.8 percent of the vote to be named the most disappointing figure of the young 2025 Formula 1 campaign.

The survey, arranged alphabetically to minimize bias, still saw the seven-time world champion draw the harshest judgment. The verdict reflects an opening stanza with Ferrari that has fallen well short of the breathless expectations set last winter when Hamilton ended his 11-year, six-title tenure at Mercedes. Many imagined the union would echo Michael Schumacher’s turn-of-the-century renaissance and restore Ferrari’s faded aura. Instead, teething issues with the new SF-25 chassis have produced a string of underwhelming Sundays.

Hamilton’s lone bright spot—a sprint win in Shanghai—hasn’t masked a broader pattern of struggles. The car’s narrow operating window has proved unforgiving, and Hamilton has frequently wrestled with an unpredictable rear end and inconsistent tyre behaviour. The season-opening triple-header laid bare the problems: in Bahrain and Japan he hovered outside podium contention, and in Saudi Arabia he limped home a distant 31 seconds behind teammate Charles Leclerc. Post-race debriefs were laced with bewilderment as Hamilton confessed he “couldn’t pinpoint where the speed vanished” or how to tune the Ferrari into his comfort zone.

Comparisons with Leclerc have only intensified scrutiny. The Monegasque, steeped in Maranello’s methodologies, has extracted sharper one-lap pace and more durable race stints from the same machinery, regularly banking top-five finishes while Hamilton toils in traffic. While many tifosi lay part of the blame at Ferrari’s long-running strategy foibles—slow pit stops, conservative calls, occasional radio mis-cues—the stark intra-team gap has dented the mythology that Hamilton alone could paper over the Scuderia’s cracks.

The poll’s remaining podium positions underline broader discontent. Red Bull reserve Liam Lawson finished second in the disappointment stakes with 19.34 percent. After impressing during a brief early-season cameo, the Kiwi was shuffled back to the sidelines once the full-time lineup solidified, leaving fans convinced a raw talent has been prematurely mothballed.

Red Bull itself ranked third at 16.61 percent, an indictment of the squad’s headline-grabbing internal power tussles and sporadic strategy gambles. Despite the RB21 remaining a front-running package, supporters sense that boardroom politics and driver-management sagas are siphoning focus from on-track execution, threatening long-term harmony.

Hamilton’s plight, though, remains the banner story. Ferrari’s SF-25 is quick in bursts yet stubbornly inconsistent, and the team’s habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory persists. Even so, history counsels against writing off Hamilton too early. The Briton has built a legacy on mid-season turnarounds—recall his 2018 recovery or his late-charge title bids in 2021 and 2023. With two-thirds of the calendar ahead, incremental gains in balance and tyre management could flip the narrative.

Ferrari’s engineers are already trialling revised floor geometries and a lighter rear suspension assembly slated for the European rounds, upgrades designed to widen the set-up sweet spot that has flummoxed Hamilton. If those tweaks bear fruit, the chatter could pivot from despair to resurgence.

For now, however, the spotlight casts an unforgiving glare. Every qualifying delta to Leclerc and every radioed plea for grip fuels the perception that Hamilton’s scarlet adventure is veering toward anticlimax. Unless podiums—and soon, victories—arrive to steady the ship, the chorus of disappointment charted in that fan poll will only swell louder as 2025 unfolds.