FERRARI HAMILTON – You’ve read it in the press, you’ve seen the discussions on X (formerly Twitter) – the narrative around Lewis Hamilton’s challenging 2025 season with Ferrari has exploded. Yet, much of this discussion stems from an exclusive interview conducted right here, on our NewsF1.it YouTube channel, with the esteemed engineer Luigi Mazzola. While some outlets may have picked up the story, we want to ensure our readers and viewers know where the original insights came from. This is our scoop, directly from the source.
In this segment of our exclusive chat with the highly respected engineer Luigi Mazzola, we delve into one of the most burning topics of Ferrari’s 2025 Formula 1 season: Lewis Hamilton’s performance.
The seven-time World Champion’s debut in red was a challenging journey, marked by inconsistent performances and an adaptation to the car that many perceived as too slow. The chorus of criticism aimed at Hamilton was loud, but Mazzola, with his unmistakable technical expertise, offers a completely different perspective, pointing a finger not only at the driver but at the internal dynamics within the Ferrari Team.
Hamilton’s 2025 Ferrari Season: A Year to Forget? Mazzola Divides the Blame!
Lewis Hamilton’s 2025 season driving for Ferrari has been the subject of countless debates. Many attributed the British champion’s lack of competitiveness to a decline in form or difficulties in adapting. However, for Luigi Mazzola, the responsibilities lie elsewhere, or at least, should be equally distributed.
“I don’t put all the blame on Hamilton, you know! I don’t put the whole situation, I don’t put it all on your side, Hamilton, you messed it all up. No, I put a good part of it, I’d say, on the Team, because you cannot, in 24 races, still not have understood how this character drives, or at least not given him a car that is consistently satisfactory, right?” Mazzola boldly states, shaking the foundations of the common narrative.
According to the engineer, external factors such as cultural changes, language barriers, or new procedures, while present, cannot justify an entire season of struggles for a driver of Hamilton’s caliber. “But a driver is in the car for… What is all that stuff when he’s in the car? A driver isolates himself and goes in peace when he has a car he can’t drive. So this is what leaves me a bit perplexed, meaning that I don’t even blame the race engineer, who is under heavy scrutiny, because I don’t know how much freedom the race engineer has to decide what to do with the car.”
Behind the Paddock Scenes: When Engineers Couldn’t Call the Shots! Mazzola’s Anecdote.
To support his argument, Mazzola shares a fascinating anecdote from his extensive Formula 1 career, dating back to his time with a young Jean Alesi and the technical management of figures like Jean-Claude Migot (aerodynamicist) and John Barnard (setup guru).
“I’m telling you this from personal experience, because I lived it in the ’90s, when I had Prost. On the other side, there was Alesi, and the guru of the situation at that moment was Jean-Claude Migot, purely an aerodynamicist… and he imposed certain directions on how the car should be set up, just as John Barnard imposed the type of setup. If the driver then can’t drive it, okay, I’d wait until Saturday because Barnard would leave, and I’d change everything on Saturday morning. And Gerard would come to me and say ‘I can’t drive it.’ ‘Yeah, I know you can’t drive it, but what were we supposed to do?'”
This illuminating story reveals how, in Formula 1, race engineers don’t always have the full freedom to modify a car’s setup based on the driver’s feedback, especially when influential figures impose a specific technical vision. A context that could have also limited the team’s ability to adapt the car to Hamilton’s needs.
