Martin Brundle admits 'dreading' listening to Lewis Hamilton

Sky Sports F1 pundit Martin Brundle admitted that he ‘dreads’ hearing Lewis Hamilton’s despondent post-session interviews in 2025, after he endured yet another disappointing result at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Hamilton made a dramatic double Q1 exit during sprint and main race qualifying at Lusail, where he struggled to find the positives in his post-qualifying interviews.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1’s Rachel Brookes after Friday's SQ1 exit, Hamilton delivered curt answers and when asked if there were any positives he could take, he said: “The weather’s nice.”

Brundle reflected on Hamilton’s disappointing performance during Sky’s pre-sprint show on Saturday, alongside host Simon Lazenby and pundit Jamie Chadwick.

“He gets out of the car and keeps his crash helmet on which is always a telling sign,” Brundle said.

“I kind of dread his interviews now on days like that. We know all the great times Lewis has had in Formula 1 and it just won’t come together.

“And it looks as if he doesn’t really know how it will. If he had a fundamental issue he knew would take some time to fix, then he could park that.

“But Leclerc is kind of half getting some performance out of the car, which puts salt in his wounds.”

Hamilton's woeful Qatar GP weekend

Hamilton and Ferrari opted to start in the pit lane for Saturday’s sprint instead of starting P18, with the team making setup changes in a bid to extract performance from the SF-25.

The plan did not materialise however, with Hamilton finishing a woeful P17 at the conclusion of the 19-lap race, with team-mate Charles Leclerc unable to progress further than P13, Ferrari’s first pointless outing in a sprint since Monza, 2021.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the sprint race, Hamilton was a bit more talkative regarding Ferrari’s issues and how they attempted to remedy them on the Saturday.

“We started from the pit lane because we wanted to explore and make some changes. They had some things they found on the simulator last night,” he explained.

“So we implemented those changes and the car was really in the wrong direction and very, very difficult for whatever reason, clearly for both us.

“But we just don’t have any stability. When I say that, (I mean) the rear end is not planted, so it’s sliding, snapping a lot. Then we have bouncing, so when you’re going into corners like Turn 10, the thing starts bouncing, we have a lot of mid-corner understeer, and then you apply the steering and then it snaps and you try to catch it.

“It’s different between low, medium and high (speed), and it’s a fight like you couldn’t believe."

There was no further joy for Hamilton during Sunday's Qatar GP, where he finished outside of the points in P12, and is keen to leave the 2025 season behind him heading into Abu Dhabi.

READ MORE: Hamilton out? Ferrari chief 'meets Sainz's manager' in Qatar

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