What Lewis Hamilton said in response to his early Ferrari F1 critics

Lewis Hamilton says he will try and “protect” Ferrari from the spotlight F1’s most famous team faces after a rollercoaster start to the 2025 season.

Aside from claiming an impressive pole position and victory in the China sprint race, the seven-time world champion’s start to life at Ferrari has been up and down.

Hamilton finished an underwhelming 10th on his debut in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and was disqualified from China’s grand prix a week later, after his Ferrari was found to have excessive plank wear during a difficult run to sixth place.

Progress was made in Bahrain, where Hamilton recovered from a poor qualifying to secure his best grand prix result for Ferrari in fifth, but both the 40-year-old Briton and the team are facing huge scrutiny.

Asked if he thinks people outside the team have tried to ‘make a crisis' out of Ferrari’s tough start to 2025, Hamilton replied: “Yes. On one side it’s to be expected.

“It is the greatest team in Formula 1 history, it’s that special. Of course there’s more stories that are written about it and people have opinions. And it’s not always been smooth sailing. So, just from my perspective, you can’t work with a team and change things overnight.

“We’ve spent this time to really get to know each other. There are changes that are short term that we’ll do together, keep all the greatness and keep building all the areas that we could be stronger in. Some of those are short-term and some of them are longer term.

“There’s so many great things within this team. We want to harness the energy and the passion that’s within the team.

“We also have to protect the team as well because the spotlight is on this team more than any other. Everyone in this team, their heart is so in it. It’s like we’re riding a rollercoaster together, up and down, and I have no doubts we will get to where we plan to be – it’s just going to take time.”

Lewis Hamilton aiming to build on progress

Hamilton declared in Bahrain that he had finally “figured out” how Ferrari’s 2025 challenger likes to be driven, and he is hoping to take a further step forward with his adaptation to the SF-25 at this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

"That's the goal," he explained. "I think it was a real positive to have had that stint and had that experience with the car. Some changes that I made in my driving style during the race.

"Now implementing that, putting that there every time I go out in the car. It's easy to automatically go back to your old driving style. So that's something I need to make sure I continue to practice. But I feel positive about it.

"Naturally, when the pressure builds up and you need to really pull out that extra bit of time, you can easily fall to your old ways. I've seen glimpses of this through testing, but to actually adapt to it and actually utilise it every single time is something I want to work on.

"That was supposed to be my question, but my other one is, we've had five races in six weekends with one small gap. Especially in your situation, changing teams."