Lewis Hamilton relationship issues at centre of Ferrari woes

Lewis Hamilton’s relationship with Ferrari has been named as a cause of his disappointing F1 career with the team.

The lack of synergy between Hamilton and Ferrari has been painfully evident in 2025, from his own inability to extract pace from the car to his struggles to gel with race engineer Riccardo Adami.

Hamilton’s relationship with Ferrari has been labelled as an integral issue by 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve, who mused on the Brit’s woes on Sky Sports F1 at the Dutch Grand Prix.

"They [Ferrari] are not getting what they signed. So there will be some frustration in there from both camps," Villeneuve said on Friday prior to FP1.

"From the team, from Lewis because he was not getting the car he was wanting, he doesn’t feel the team is behind him, the team doesn’t feel Lewis is with them.

"It's not gelling, and you can hear it when he is communicating with his engineer on race day. There’s no chemistry. None at all, it is as if they are on different planets and they don’t even communicate to each other.

"But the same is true with Leclerc and his engineer. There is something really odd happening at that team that is not progressing in the right direction.

"And when you hear Lewis’ interviews he doesn’t seem excited, doesn’t seem to believe what he said. It’s as if he doesn’t want to go to work, it’s really strange."

Hamilton suffering from poor communication at Ferrari

Villeneuve mentioned Hamilton’s demeanour during interviews, with the champion at his most crestfallen after qualifying at the Hungarian GP prior to the summer break.

When the 40-year-old was unable to make Q3 last time out, he proceeded to describe himself as ‘useless’ and advocated for his own sacking from Ferrari, naturally speaking on emotion.

Upon Hamilton’s return after the summer break however, the champion appeared more relaxed and at peace with Ferrari’s pace in 2025, where he confirmed that they were changing their approach for the remaining races.

"I feel determined to, and motivated," Hamilton said to the media at Zandvoort.

"We're going to work hard, keep our heads down, try to change a few things in our approach and start to enjoy ourselves.

"There's been so much pressure in this first half of the season, it's not been the most enjoyable, so I think just remembering that we love what we do, we're all in this together and yeah, we're trying to have some fun."

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