Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has refused to write off Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari and has backed him to turn things around following a difficult start to life with the Scuderia, Afrosport reports.
The seven-time world champion has failed to finish on the podium in the first 10 races of the 2025 Formula 1 season, the first time such as happened in his illustrious career.
His best performance was taking pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race, which he won, while his best showing on race day was fourth place at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
While Hamilton has been outperformed by teammate Charles Leclerc, who has been on the podium three times, Wolff believes there will be improvement from his former driver.
“You don’t unlearn driving that quickly,” the Austrian told the Bloomberg Hot Pursuit podcast.
“In 2021, he was great, then the regulations changed, and it got a little bit more difficult, but he was still performing on a very high level. And just by changing teams, suddenly you don’t lose your skills.
“I think everybody needs to have a period of adaption. Different car, different DNA of how that vehicle drives, a new engineering team that you need to start to work together, then be involved with the continuous development on the car so it suits your driving style.
“It’s an all-Italian team; he’s a British guy parachuted in there – and that takes time. Also, we have seen a little bit of a pattern that Lewis at the beginning of the season, he needs to find that mojo, and then the second half of the season has been always very strong.
“So don’t ever write Lewis Hamilton off.”
Austria, we’re coming for you 🔜 pic.twitter.com/8zXj20AMDR
— Scuderia Ferrari HP (@ScuderiaFerrari) June 25, 2025
Hamilton and Wolff formed a solid partnership at Mercedes, where the 40-year-old won six of seven drivers’ championships while the German automobile giant won an unprecedented eight constructors’ titles.
