{"id":364951,"date":"2025-08-22T15:33:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/364951\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T15:33:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:33:16","slug":"lewis-hamilton-at-centre-of-internal-fight-claim-with-ferrari-not-paying-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/364951\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton at centre of ‘internal fight’ claim with Ferrari ‘not paying attention’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton is at the centre of an \u201cinternal fight\u201d at Ferrari with driver and team disagreeing on the way forward after a difficult start to the F1 2025 season.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is the claim of former Williams and McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya, who insists Hamilton\u2019s comments at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix were \u201cnot a sign of a meltdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrari \u2018not paying enough attention\u2019 to Lewis Hamilton<\/p>\n

Hamilton has endured a troubled start to his Ferrari career following his high-profile move from Mercedes last winter, failing to register a podium finish in his first 14 appearances for his new team.<\/p>\n

The seven-time World Champion\u2019s season slumped to a new low in Hungary, where he could only manage 12th in qualifying on a day team-mate Charles Leclerc claimed Ferrari\u2019s first pole position of F1 2025.<\/p>\n

Hamilton repeatedly referred to himself as \u201cuseless\u201d before suggesting that Ferrari should consider replacing him.<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc: Ferrari head-to-head scores for F1 2025<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates<\/a><\/p>\n

The 40-year-old also alluded to potential trouble behind the scenes at Maranello, commenting: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot going on in the background that\u2019s not great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamilton\u2019s disappointing weekend in Hungary came just a week after he revealed that he has submitted a number of \u201cdocuments\u201d to Ferrari, proposing changes to the car and the team\u2019s structure, in a bid to turn his situation around.<\/p>\n

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com<\/a>, Hamilton said that his willingness to \u201cgo the extra mile\u201d is driven by a \u201crefusal\u201d to follow in the footsteps of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, established champions who fell short of winning the title with Ferrari.<\/p>\n

Montoya claimed seven wins in 94 F1 starts for the Williams and McLaren teams between 2001 and 2006, leaving F1 for NASCAR ahead of Hamilton\u2019s debut season in 2007.<\/p>\n

And the Colombian is convinced that Hamilton and Ferrari are suffering from a clash of ideas, with the team reluctant to listen to Hamilton\u2019s requests to change its ways.<\/p>\n

Montoya told a gambling platform: \u201cI think that his statement [in Hungary] is not a sign of a meltdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a way of telling Ferrari: \u2018If you\u2019re not going to listen to me, then you might as well take me out and let me go.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing here is Lewis is not getting the attention he wants and they\u2019re not paying attention enough to him for what he wants and what he\u2019s pushing for.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s putting in a lot of hard work. I think he\u2019s working really hard, but I think Ferrari is very structured in the way it does things: \u2018This is our way and accept it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Lewis is going: \u2018Your way doesn\u2019t win!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s an internal fight with people saying Ferrari needs to listen to Lewis and [Hamilton insisting] \u2018we need to change our ways.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is really, really hard because there is a lot of tradition in Ferrari and a lot of politics in Ferrari.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think Lewis is more used to Mercedes\u2019 outlook which is: \u2019What do we need to do to win?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about politics; it\u2019s about results at Mercedes.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Lewis Hamilton news<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Ferrari news<\/a><\/p>\n

Montoya\u2019s comments come after Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, claimed that Hamilton sometimes \u201cexaggerates\u201d his issues with the SF-25 car<\/a>, with his \u201cextreme\u201d outbursts in the media only making matters \u201cworse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked how he can make Hamilton more comfortable at Ferrari, Vasseur told Germany\u2019s Auto Motor und Sport:\u00a0\u201cStay calm.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuild on the fact that he has already taken the first step. Don\u2019t let things like what happened in Budapest get you down.<\/p>\n

\u201cLewis is very self-critical. He is always extreme in his reactions. Sometimes he is too hard on the car, sometimes on himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to get the most out of himself and everyone in the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to calm him down and explain to him that in Q2 [in Hungary] he was only a tenth of a second behind the driver [Leclerc] who later took pole position. That\u2019s no big deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message he sends out only makes things worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time, he\u2019s only that extreme with the press. By the time he comes into the briefing room, he\u2019s usually calmed down again. That\u2019s just his way.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s no big deal. He demands a lot. From others, but also from himself. I can live with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cNico Hulkenberg was the same when he drove for me in Formula 3. He demanded an awful lot from the team, but he was also there every morning at 6.30 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe solve the problems step by step. They\u2019re not huge, they just look that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the braking system isn\u2019t quite how the driver would like it, then maybe half a tenth is lost there.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the outside, it\u2019s often difficult to quickly identify exactly where he\u2019s losing that half-tenth.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a minimal time difference can ruin your whole weekend. It can be the difference between Q2 and Q3.<\/p>\n

\u201cLewis sometimes exaggerates the problems he sees in the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team then naturally wants to respond and everyone jumps on the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Inside the war on F1\u2019s social media toxicity: How the FIA will hunt down and prosecute social media bullies<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton is at the centre of an \u201cinternal fight\u201d at Ferrari with driver and team disagreeing on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,997,707,4200,225,998,12,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-364951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-ferrari","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-lewis-hamilton","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115073148932686374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}