The build-up to the Qatar Grand Prix arrives under an air of unease for Lewis Hamilton, whose inaugural season with Ferrari has spiralled far below expectations. Though anticipation once surrounded his high-profile shift to Maranello, the partnership has instead produced a campaign marked by erratic pace, strategic misfires, and a yawning performance gap to his team-mate Charles Leclerc. Yet despite the turbulence and the relentless scrutiny, Hamilton remains adamant that he harbours no remorse over the move, asserting that such transitions demand patience and long-term vision.
Hamilton’s struggles throughout 2025 have been severe enough to fracture long-standing patterns in his otherwise illustrious career. Across twenty-two Grands Prix, he has failed to secure a single podium — a statistical aberration for a driver whose résumé has been defined by near-constant front-running success. His early-season triumph in the China Sprint stands as the lone glimmer amid an otherwise bruising campaign. The nadir arrived in Las Vegas, where he suffered the worst qualifying performance of his eighteen-year tenure, ending Saturday at the absolute back of the grid on raw speed alone.
In the emotional aftermath of that gruelling weekend, Hamilton’s comments suggested fatigue, disillusionment, and a diminished appetite for the challenges of 2026. However, as he addressed the media ahead of the Qatar event, he recalibrated his tone, attributing his post-race remarks to the exhaustion and irritation that often shadow underperforming weekends. He emphasised that end-of-season doldrums inevitably sap enthusiasm and insisted that he remains invested in what Ferrari intends to construct for the forthcoming year.
Pressed on whether he would have still signed with Ferrari had he foreseen the adversity of 2025, Hamilton declined to entertain the hypothetical. Instead, he reiterated his conviction that joining the Scuderia was neither a miscalculation nor a regrettable gamble, but rather a long-term commitment to rebuilding a storied institution. Progress, he stressed, requires endurance; integrating into an organisation of Ferrari’s scale and complexity is not instantaneous, nor did he ever expect it to be.
With Qatar and Abu Dhabi offering his final opportunities to salvage a podium-less season, Hamilton approaches the weekend with a tempered but renewed optimism. Lusail’s blend of sweeping corners and its restrictive tyre-stint rules present a technical landscape distinct from the chaos of Las Vegas. While he concedes that matching Red Bull’s performance may remain a stretch, he believes Ferrari’s speed profile should be more competitive here. In a season defined by hardship, Hamilton searches for a closing chapter that can, at the very least, hint at brighter foundations for the year ahead.
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