Hamilton and Ferrari in for painful season: 'I literally tried everything'

Lewis Hamilton can't seem to get to grips with his SF-25. After coming in P7 some 31 seconds behind teammate and podium finisher Charles Leclerc, the Briton advises he's in 'for a painful year' in his first season racing for Ferrari.

Hamilton and Ferrari in for painful 2025 F1 season

Can Ferrari mitigate the issues Hamilton is having? The British driver answered that question to media in Jeddah, including GPblog.

"I don't anticipate that but we (Hamilton and Leclerc, ed.) do have slightly different setups so I have to look and see whether that setup is the way that Charles likes to be set. Him and his side are definitely obviously doing a better job than us," Hamilton said, before issuing a grim forecast.

"At the moment there's no fix, this is how it's going to be for the rest of the year. It's going to be painful."

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Apart from the car, could Hamilton's woes be stemming from himself, internally? "No, no, it's not," replied the 7-time world champion.

"In qualifying it's me [not] extracting performance. And in the race today, I literally did everything. I tried everything. And the car just didn't want to go quicker, so."

Hamilton then points not to the car or himself, but rather at a more holistic issue. F1's ground effect era which he describes as "the worst." Does 2026 then make him hopeful?

"No, I don't know anything about next year's car if I'm being honest, so I'm not having any time to think about it, so let's hope. Less ground effects, let's hope that things shift a little bit."