Where Hamilton’s “just not” with Ferraris F1 car “succeeds”

Lewis Hamilton started the Saudi -arabian Grand Prix weekend optimistically for a breakthrough in its first Ferrari formula -1 season thanks to “changes that I made to my driving style” in the middle stink of the race in Bahrain.

This initial positivity melted in the Jeddah heat of a difficult Friday practice, which an overwhelming qualification meeting followed when Hamilton admitted that he was “simply not negotiated by car”.

Even worse, Hamilton also implied that his experience pointed out that what he learned in Bahrain was not the basis for a potential breakthrough.

It is important to note that Hamilton said this shortly after qualifying, a time when he understandably is not the most positive or analytical after poor performance, but it is clearly frustrating.

“Well, after the last race I obviously felt positive and hoped that I could use some of these things, but it is not working,” said Hamilton when I was asked about the technical changes.

“Back to the drawing board and continue working.”

This weekend pattern has been too familiar for Hamilton since the early high of its victory in China Sprint. In Saudi Arabia, he was at least “happier” by car in qualifying than in practice, but it was still far away where he wanted it. While Hamilton is stronger in the race just as in Bahrain, he still finds the Ferrari a hard nut to crack.

Hamilton’s qualified performance was not his worst of 2025 (which came in Bahrain a week ago), but it was not far away. He was the sieve fastest, three places and 0.531 seconds slower than teammate Charles Leclerc.

It was another qualified session in which weak flickers of the promise were quickly deleted. Hamilton exceeded Leclerc in the first quarter, although this was his teammate, who did not improve in his last run, then ended the second quarter of 0.236 and only sharpened the top 10 thanks to the 0.007 advantage, which he had to Williams driver Alex Albon.

The first run in Q3 on used soft tires for both Ferrari drivers was interrupted by the red flag caused by Lando Norris’ crash. While Leclerc shaved two tenths before his second quarter of the quarter in the decisive final, Hamilton was a tenth slower than what he had achieved.

When asked why he “lacked a lot of speed” in his own words, Hamilton had a simple answer.

“(It’s) just me,” he said. “At the moment just not by car.”

The broader problem is clear and it is not just about moving to Ferrari, since the problems were apparent in 2024. Hamilton tries to get the best out of the car when it gets the best out of the car when it comes to supplying qualifications, which is usually manifested as too much in the corner entries. There were other problems in qualifying in Saudi Arabia, but as he put it: “The rounds in the third quarter are quite poor, these are my worst rounds at the moment, so I have to work on it.”

Here his discharge of the lessons learned in Bahrain might have been premature. He was adamant on Thursday.

“I think it is applicable,” he said when he was asked after the race whether he believed that what he learned would be generally applicable for his driving. “If you look at my driving style, especially in 2020, 2021 and before, it worked well with this autogenic.

“This driving style, maybe the others already have it and I know that Charles has had him here for several years. It is of course when the pressure comes, builds up and you really have to pull out the additional time, you can easily get into your old ways.”

Hamilton’s old paths, which worked phenomenally, can be summarized as a tendency, to brake late and hard, load the front tires while the car rises forward, and insert the car into the corner before it has to, and then the rear rotation to transform the car without being able to exaggerate it. It is a difficult style to perfect, but one in which Hamilton’s precision and the feeling made it possible for him to thrive.

The current generation of soil effect cars runs with very limited driving altitude movement, since the car has to be kept in the right window aerodynamically and does not react well to this driving style. This played a role in a gap that seemed to be more like two to three tenths at the beginning of the qualification balloon.

Since Leclerc to the fastest to adapt to the challenges of these cars and modify its brake style immediately, Hamilton took some time to head in the first half of 2022, and has been running through a process that his teammate has long since nailed since then. To complicate this, he has to adapt to the use of Brembo brakes that have been used for a long time carbon industry products at Mercedes.

There were other problems this weekend. On Friday, Hamilton’s minimum speed in most corners was lower than that of Leclerc – in some cases clear. In her quarterly rounds it was in the fifth Gange 4-5 and in the long left-hander in curve 13 that Leclerc took, and fifth while Hamilton fell to fourth place, where this was most clear today. And the whole weekend there were signs that Hamilton is still not as confident in the fast sweeps as Leclerc with a car that overrides a little.

All of this results in a constant loss of the laptime on Leclerc via the lap, which is due to a combination of reasons. It is no surprise that Hamilton still has problems. He has changed the teams, is in addition to a phenomenally fast teammate in Leclerc and has to adapt to different ways of working, subtle different driving tools-reflect on the way Ferrari dynamically uses motor brakes-and while he says that he is now the knowledge of what is in the toolkit, and the effect that has everything in detail.

While Leclerc worked through a number of so-called “extreme” set-up experiments and caused the car to compensate for adequately, although there is still no lack, Hamilton still has to do work. This refers to both driving as well as the car that requires the furnishings and the necessary upgrades.

Hamilton is inevitably frustrated. It is one thing to understand that it will take some time – certainly five racing weekends – to fully adapt, and another so that an extremely competitive character goes through this frustrating time.

In addition, there is a very real concern that the properties of the heavy soil effect play cars against a style in which he took the opportunity to offer its incredible sensitivity to create its advantage and you can understand why it is so difficult.

“We will continue to work,” said Hamilton. “No matter what, I’m trying. I’m a long way away, but we don’t give up. We just try it.”

Each driver would deal with the gap of a little more than half a second, which Hamilton had on his teammates in the qualification in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. But with the stylistic challenges, the need to adapt, the lack of self -confidence and the time required to create more and more familiarity with the series of tools that are available to refine the autodynamics is the time that can melt together.

If Hamilton reaches half of the season in half and this pattern continues to characterize its weekends, this is the point where larger questions have to be asked. At the moment it is still about the inevitable growing pain of his new partnership with Ferrari.

And Hamilton will hope that his comment on F1 TV, that he may be in his own way and has ever struggled to change, is nothing more than a throw -off liability, especially in view of the inconsistency of the cars as a further part of the problem.

“I may remain so firm that it will never change,” said Hamilton “I couldn’t work harder and I try to implement things that I see and do it on the right path. The car reacts every time they go out, and this is definitely a challenge.”