It’s been a challenging 2025 season with Ferrari for Lewis Hamilton thus far, but the Barcelona race could provide him with an opportunity to prove a point.
He wasn’t happy on Friday, but after an issue with the car was sorted out overnight he overcame a gearshift issue in FP3 and found some solid pace in qualifying, taking P5 in Q2 and repeating that when it mattered in Q3.
He has both McLarens, Max Verstappen and George Russell ahead of him, but the man who has won here six times is targeting a top three finish, and an improvement on the charge at Imola that represents his best full-length race of the year to date.
He cites his former team mate’s jump from P4 to the lead at the start of last year’s race as inspiration.
“My target is to try and get to the podium,” he said when I asked if beating Russell would be his initial aim. “I haven’t been on the podium for a long time. It’s a long way down to Turn One.
“You saw the start George got last year, and so I will be trying my best to try and get a good start, and then otherwise, after that, it’s just about managing the tyres here, which is challenging.
“But like every weekend, I’m coming to the circuit for the first time with the team, and the car is so much different to what I drove previous years here.
“So through the weekend, I’m having to adapt this new driving style, which is horrible! It’s not an enjoyable driving style, but I’m adapting it to these circuits each time I come. But I love that it’s a first each weekend.”
Hamilton noted that his Friday woes were traced to a specific issue, rather than an inherent problem.
“I wouldn’t say I was frustrated yesterday,” he said. “I was just confused, because we didn’t really change anything in the car, and then all of a sudden we lost some downforce from the floor, and it was like a massive shift in balance, and we didn’t do anything.
“And so I got into P2 hoping for the same car, and it wasn’t the same car. So that that was a bit confusing for us. We discovered it afterwards, and we rectified that today, and the car’s been much better today, so we have clearly improved qualifying, which is a real positive. So we’ve got to keep building. We clearly don’t have the pace of the guys up ahead.”
Hamilton concedes that it won’t be easy to make progress in the coming weeks.
“If I’m honest, I don’t know what upgrades we have coming,” he said. “But we haven’t had an upgrade for quite some time, and we’ll keep pushing with what we have. But before too soon, I’ll be just saying this focus on next year.
“So building a foundation this year, learning about the tools, in terms of structure, in terms of how our process is, just nailing those. So then when we arrive next year, we’ll be with the car that we really want.”
Like everyone else Ferrari had to make a new front wing to meet the stricter flexing requirements, but Hamilton made it clear that he was underwhelmed by the whole thing.
“I drove it on the simulator, and it’s pretty much exactly the same, a little bit more oversteer in the high-speed,” he said.
“The balance is definitely not as nice as what we had before, but it hasn’t made any [difference]. What a waste of money, it’s just wasted everyone’s money.
“It’s literally changed nothing. Everyone’s wings still bend, it’s just half the bending, and everyone’s had to make new wings and spend more money to make these. It’s just doesn’t make sense, but it is what it is, and we just continue on…”
Adam Cooper F1 