Lewis Hamilton has reiterated that he is \u201chere to win\u201d at Ferrari, with the Briton stating that he \u201crefuses\u201d to miss out on winning a title as previous champions have done at the Scuderia.<\/p>\n
After a long and successful partnership with Mercedes<\/a> \u2013 which yielded numerous championships \u2013 Hamilton<\/a> switched to Ferrari<\/a> for 2025 and, at the halfway point of the season, sits in sixth place of the Drivers\u2019 Standings<\/a>, his best result so far being a P4.<\/p>\n Signs of progress have emerged during recent races \u2013 with Hamilton just missing out on a podium last time out at Silverstone<\/a> \u2013 but the seven-time World Champion is hoping for more, having spent time at the squad\u2019s Maranello headquarters in the two weeks since his home event while the SF-25 will also run a revised rear suspension<\/a> at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n \u201cI was at the factory, a couple of days in each week,\u201d Hamilton explained ahead of the event at Spa-Francorchamps. \u201cWe did preparation for\u2026 naturally you\u2019re going over where we were in the previous race, things that we need to change.<\/p>\n \u201cI hold a lot of meetings so I\u2019ve called on lots of meetings with the heads of the team, so I\u2019ve sat with John [Elkann], Benedetto [Vigna] and Fred [Vasseur], several meetings.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve sat with the head of our car development, with Loic [Serra], but also with the heads of different departments, talking about the engine for next year, talking about front suspension for next year, talking about rear suspension for next year, things that you want, issues that you have with the car.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve sent documents, I\u2019ve done [that] through the year. After the first few races I did a full document for the team, then during this break I had another two documents that I sent in and so they would come in and want to address those.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of it\u2019s structural, adjustments that we need to make as a team in order to get better in all the areas that we want to improve, and then the other one was really about the car, the current issues that I have with this car, some things that you do want to take onto next year\u2019s car and some that you need to work on and change for next year.<\/p>\n \u201c[I] tried the 2026 car for the first time and started work on that. The engineers come to the room and you sit and debrief with every single one of them, so a big, big push. And otherwise [I\u2019ve] just been training, maybe a little bit too hard!\u201d<\/p>\n Pushed on why he felt the need to provide documents to the team, Hamilton explained his determination to succeed as a Ferrari driver.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason for it is that I see a huge amount of potential within this team,\u201d the 40-year-old said. \u201cThe passion, nothing comes close to that. It is a huge organisation and there\u2019s a lot of moving parts, and not all of them firing on all the cylinders they need to be.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s ultimately why the team\u2019s not had the success that I think it deserves. I feel that it\u2019s my job to challenge absolutely every area, to challenge everybody in the team, particularly the guys at the top who are making the decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the team over the last 20 years, they\u2019ve had amazing drivers. They had Kimi [Raikkonen]<\/a>, they had Fernando [Alonso]<\/a>, they had Sebastian [Vettel]<\/a>, all World Champions; however, they didn\u2019t win a World Champion[ship], and for me, I refuse for that to be the case, so I\u2019m going the extra mile.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously I\u2019m very fortunate to have had experiences in two other great teams, and whilst things are for sure going to be different because there\u2019s a different culture and everything, I think sometimes if you take the same path all the time you get the same results, so I\u2019m just challenging certain things.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been incredibly responsive. They\u2019ve been improving in so many areas, in marketing, through everything we\u2019ve been continuously delivering for sponsors, the way the engineers continue to work.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s lots of work and improvements to be made, but [they\u2019ve been] very responsive and I guess ultimately trying to create allies within the organisation and get them geed up, get them pushing.<\/p>\n