Lewis Hamilton could retire from F1 'BEFORE' the end of the 2026 season

Former F1 world champion Damon Hill has said that Lewis Hamilton may leave the sport before the end of the season, claiming 'the joy has gone out of it.'

Hill believes the 2026 championship will be the last for either Hamilton or 44-year-old Fernando Alonso, or potentially even both.

Hamilton is a seven-time world champion, and is statistically speaking the most successful racer in the history of F1, but his last two seasons have been pretty dismal.

In his final year at Mercedes in 2024 he claimed two grand prix victories, but still finished 22 points behind team-mate George Russell in the standings, while 2025 saw him suffer his biggest ever team-mate defeat, losing out by 86 points to Charles Leclerc in his first year at Ferrari.

Two-time world champion Alonso has also suffered a disappointing last couple of years, despite his performance being better than team-mate Lance Stroll. Alonso has not secured a single podium in the last two seasons even though he added eight to his tally in 2023.

Alonso has not claimed a grand prix victory since the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix, while Hamilton went podium-less in terms of grands prix last season for the first time in his illustrious career.

Both men are in desperate need of a good 2026 season, especially considering it could be the final year of both of their current contracts in the sport.

But Hill believes that one of both of drivers will be gone by the end of the year, citing that Hamilton could even have left the sport before that.

"The joy of everything has gone out of it,"Hill said in a recent podcast appearance. "Basically we're asking whether or not Fernando and Lewis, either or, will be, this will be their last season.

"We're kind of sitting here now and we kind of go all of the balance, the scales are weighing up towards them, this has got to be the last year.

"Unless suddenly Ferrari produce a blinding car, or Adrian Newey has waved his magic wand at Aston Martin and Fernando's got a clear run at the championship.

"But either way, one of them is going to go because they can't both win! If the motivation goes, if Lewis has another year like he's been having like last year or the year before, I don't see him seeing the end of the year out.

"Because the joy of everything has gone out of it. You can't simply be, he doesn't need to sit in a car and deliver points for Ferrari if Charles Leclerc is winning or just getting more than him. He doesn't need to be there," he concluded.

Will 2026 see a turnaround for F1 legends?

Hamilton is the younger of the two legends and has achieved success in the sport a lot more recently, with his last title in 2020 and Alonso's in 2006.

Yet it seems to be Hamilton who is under more pressure heading into the upcoming championship. His performances last season left much to be desired, particularly in qualifying, and Ferrari will not hesitate to replace him if they feel they can be getting similar performance out of somebody who is considerably cheaper.

Alonso, for all his struggles in 2025, still out-qualified team-mate Stroll during all 24 grand prix qualifying sessions, and finished 23 points ahead of him in the drivers' championship.

In this sense, Aston Martin arguably need Alonso more than Ferrari need Hamilton.

But both drivers will be hoping their respective teams can produce significantly better machinery in 2026 and allow them to fight for positions higher up the grid at race weekends.

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