Sir Lewis Hamilton is the most successful Formula 1 driver in the sport’s 75-year history, with seven world championships, 105 race wins and 104 pole positions. He joined the legendary Scuderia Ferrari at the beginning of 2025, and despite taking his and Ferrari’s first Sprint Race win in China early in the season, Hamilton has received harsh criticism for his subsequent performance. This criticism is laced with racial discrimination and based on hyperbolic doomsday scenarios.
Hamilton has an average finishing position of 7.33 five races into the 2025 season and is currently seventh in the Driver Standings with 31 total points, 68 points behind the championship leader. The British driver has struggled with his qualifying and race pace as he adjusts to his new team, car and power unit. Furthermore, Hamilton and his teammate Charles Leclerc were disqualified from the Chinese GP and lost all their points from the feature race due to team errors, further widening the gap to their competitors.
“I don’t have an answer. I’m struggling,” Hamilton said after the Saudi Arabian GP. “I find it hard to feel the car underneath me. But yes, there’s nothing specific. There’s nothing that leads you to say: ‘Here, this is the problem.’ I think I will also have difficulties in Miami. I don’t know how much longer I will keep struggling, but it is undoubtedly frustrating.”
The expectations on Hamilton’s shoulders are as heavy as the weight of all his trophies, and the way the media are treating him is disrespectful and embarrassing to journalism.
As the first and only Black F1 driver in history, Hamilton has always been an easy target for the media. Every aspect of his behaviour is under ridiculous scrutiny, from how he drives to how he answers questions. The simple fact is that Hamilton has nothing more to prove, if he ever did.
He got a podium finish in his first-ever race and won his sixth. His records are miles ahead of everyone else’s, and he is still racing with as much grit and determination at 40 years old as when he was a rookie. The insinuation that he should retire or that he is “washed” is completely ludicrous.
Hamilton is adjusting to a new environment and vehicle after a long tenure at Mercedes; naturally, adapting to Ferrari’s methods, people and car will take time. Furthermore, it is not as if the Scuderia is all sunshine and rainbows.
Ferrari’s technical performance is inferior to their 2024 performance, which was not stellar to begin with. The team has not won a Constructors or Driver’s championship since 2007 — the year Hamilton joined the grid. Many times, he was the one who thwarted Ferrari’s chances of victory. The Italian team is in recovery mode, continually striving to improve until they return to the forefront with the very best drivers.
“I will be 2000% behind him,” Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur said after the Saudi Arabia GP. “I will give him support here, and we will start from tomorrow morning to try to find solutions and reasons and to work on it early in the morning.”
“We did five races so far,” he told Sky Sports UK. “I know that you want to have the big headlines tomorrow that ‘Fred said this.’ But this is f-cking bullsh-t.”
Vasseur could not be more right. Lewis Hamilton is a name bigger than F1, and any headline that mentions him, whether flattering or insulting, is bound to get desperate pseudo-journalists a chance to shine. It is cheap reporting to take Hamilton’s recent results and throw away a career of phenomenal successes as if his skill at the wheel could just vanish one day.
Ferrari is a team that, unfortunately, has forgotten what it feels like to win, and there is no greater winner in F1 than Hamilton. Together, they can remember the feeling.
“Please keep your fingers crossed,” Hamilton told fans at an event in London on April 25. “I’m not going to give up. Thank you all so much. I appreciate it. ‘Still, we rise,’ right?”
“Still, I/we rise” is Hamilton’s motto, present on his helmets and tattooed on his back.
Better results are on the way for the seven-time world champion; it is only a matter of time. Meanwhile, F1’s press pundits must learn how to behave like real journalists.
