THE FIRST SUPERLIGA - SPRING 2025 FINALS AFTERMOVIE | LEAGUE OF LEGENDS | FC Barcelona 🔵🔴

Lewis Hamilton's current form is becoming increasingly unsustainable for himself, Ferrari and Formula One. We're nine races into Hamilton's dream Ferrari switch, and it's been a real rollercoaster of emotions that's veered from immense joy to utter dejection. Hamilton is one of, if not the most emotionally expressive F1 drivers. You don't have to be a psychologist to understand his mood after any given race. And over most of the last few races, Hamilton has appeared more crestfallen than even at the height of his ground effect era struggles with Mercedes. The race saw that dejection reach its peak at the Spanish Grand Prix. On the cool-down lap after finishing sixth behind a Sauber, our teammate Charles Leclerc stole an unlikely podium. A baffled Hamilton told his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, unbelievable guys, something is wrong with this car, mate. It's the worst it's ever been. Hamilton's Barcelona weekend didn't start out as a disaster. He actually out-qualified Leclerc on Saturday for only the second time this year, albeit with the caveat that Leclerc sacrificed the optimal tyre strategy to benefit his race. But Hamilton's race wasn't good. Leclerc caught him with ease and Hamilton's pace was so comparatively poor, he was ordered to move out of Leclerc's way after less than 10 of the 66 laps of the race. Thereafter, Hamilton lost out to George Russell's Mercedes and was even gazumped by a Sauber, with Nico Hülkenberg passing him as if Hülkenberg was the one in the works Ferrari, not Hamilton. And post-race, we got the first hint that Hamilton's starting to doubt whether he's the problem, not the car. Hamilton hinting a car problem is behind a painful deficit to his teammate isn't anything new. During his lowest moments at Mercedes, there were suggestions his car was lacking something versus his event teammate Russell, and at Suzuka earlier this year, he made claims of an unspecified deficit his car had compared to Leclerc's Ferrari. And now his Barcelona cool-down lap accetation that something is wrong with the car continues that trend. Asked post-race by Sky Sports F1 if he could explain what's gone wrong, Hamilton said, not particularly, it was just not a good day. Sky's Rachel Brooks then said, it's hard to see you in this mood, to which Hamilton replied, what do you want me to say? I just had a really bad day. I've got nothing to say. It was a difficult day. There's just nothing else to add to it. It was terrible. There's no point explaining it. It's not your fault. Just what else to say? Then came Hamilton's doubt. As Brooks said, I do understand. I just hope they find answers for you. Hamilton replied, I'm sure they won't. It was probably just me. That's the first sign at Ferrari of Hamilton pondering whether you simply can't drive around the limitations of the car in the way that teammate Leclerc can. The two were actually fairly evenly matched at the start of the season. In the Melbourne season opener, Hamilton's two tenths deficit in qualifying could mostly be explained by one corner, turn 12, which Hamilton struggled to hook up all weekend. And in China, Hamilton won the sprint and out-qualified Leclerc twice. But China is where things started to go wrong. And since then, Ferrari has been obliged to drastically change the setup parameters of the car as a result of Hamilton's disqualification for excessive underbody plank wear. The car now has to be set up in a way Leclerc describes as really extreme in order to get the most of its limited potential. The mechanical balance Leclerc has pushed towards essentially works against the aerodynamic balance to get a better spread of performance through different corner speeds. But that has made the car much more challenging to drive post-China and has moved the car further away from what Hamilton needs to be quick. Hamilton's often struggling in the high-speed corners, with Leclerc better able to cope with the oversteer in those fast turns. You could even theorise that the new flexi-wing technical directive has worsened it, as that makes it more difficult to find the right setup balance between the high-speed oversteer and low-speed understeer that's inherent to this generation of cars. Hamilton called the technical directive a waste of money and a band-aid for a poorly designed set of regulations. But perhaps there's also a hint of frustration there that it's made his job even more difficult. Ferrari's upgrades across the triple header haven't helped either and Hamilton's admission after Jeddah in April that this is how it's going to be for the rest of the year, it's just going to be painful, looks increasingly accurate. It's no surprise that there's been a noticeable dip in Hamilton's performance since China, with inspired strategy calls like the early switch to slicks that gave him a sprint podium at Miami and slices of fortune like the safety car timing that helped him to fourth at Imola being his only chance of highlight. In fact, Hamilton's sixth place in Barcelona is in the top half of his Grand Prix results with Ferrari so far, but that says more about the rest of his season than Barcelona, where he was the weakest top four team driver outside of rookie Kimi Antonelli and the struggling Yuki Tsunoda. And the contrast to Leclerc continues to be painful. Regarded as one of F1's fastest drivers over a single lap, Leclerc was always going to pose Hamilton problems, but he's been just as big a problem on Sundays as Saturdays, with the current qualifying head-to-head 7-2 to Leclerc and the race head-to-head 7-1 in his favour. Even if Ferrari's car improves to the point where it can routinely fight for race wins, unless there's a fundamental balance shift that brings it back towards Hamilton, maybe from the new rear suspension that's rumoured for Silverstone, which should allow Ferrari to run its car lower, closer to how it did to China, then it's only going to be Leclerc spearheading Ferrari's charge. In his post-race media session that included the race, Hamilton felt that there were zero positives to take away from Barcelona, and said this is the worst race of experience balance-wise. When asked for his plan between now and the next race in Canada, Hamilton said, I'm going home, and repeated home when asked where he goes from here. When asked how he builds on this, a clearly despondent Hamilton said, I want to head home, guys, which was a clear plea of please stop asking me questions and let me leave. It didn't come across in a rude way, but more just evidence of how crushing this triple header has been for Hamilton, and how much in need of a reset he is. Hamilton's comments were put to Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur after the race, who typically brushed them off. He said not to draw a conclusion after the first word of the driver, and added if you want to create the polemic, you can, but it's not the case. Vasseur pointed out Hamilton did 70% of the race ahead of Russell, and said the race wasn't a disaster. He said there was an issue on Hamilton and Leclerc's cars during the final stint, but wouldn't be drawn on what that issue was. He's correct to say Hamilton's race wasn't a total disaster in isolation, he was within 15 seconds of his teammate before the safety car bunched up the field, but Hamilton's reaction post-race did nod to a borderline disastrous situation. A situation in which Hamilton has the worst feeling with a Ferrari yet, when nine races in, he should be starting to click with this new car. Vasseur brushed off making anything of Hamilton's post-race comments as polemic, just doesn't stand up when there's been a consistent theme of Hamilton not jelling with this car. And every apparent breakthrough, like the China Sprint or Imola or the Miami Sprint podium, has an easy explanation as to why it cannot be consistently repeated or built upon. There also continues to be flare-ups between Hamilton and Ferrari, for it's starting to go beyond the growing pains you'd expect from a new partnership. Hamilton's adaptation process to Ferrari was always going to be challenging, given he'd spent 12 seasons at Mercedes and established a partnership with Pete Bonington that you can't just replace overnight. But his relationship with Riccardo Adami so far has been rocky to say the least. After Monaco, Hamilton was asking, are you upset with me or something, with no reply on the cool-down lap, and in the race, Hamilton was frustrated that Adami didn't directly answer how far ahead Leclerc was of him at first. That was during another race where there was a mystifying pace gap to Leclerc, as Hamilton hemorrhaged time in the final 20 laps. This was perhaps inevitable given just how unique the culture at Ferrari is, and Hamilton's relationship was always going to be tested more if the performance wasn't there. Hamilton has routinely praised the team around him, specifying after Barcelona that the strategy was good and the team did a great job. But you can't help but wonder whether Hamilton isn't jelling with Ferrari in the way you'd have hoped. That's probably a direct consequence of the sub-optimal performance level from both car and driver, rather than being a key contributing factor to his underperformance. If the car was better, or Hamilton was closer to Leclerc, you can guarantee the relationship would be better and Adami and Hamilton would have far less to disagree over. Even Hamilton and Bono's interactions became more tense at times, but Bonitin knew Hamilton inside out by the end of their tenure, whereas Adami will still be trying to figure him out. Just like the on-track performance, Vasseur shut down any notion that Hamilton is struggling to adapt to Ferrari. But that won't stop anyone from wondering whether Hamilton's on an unsustainable trajectory. No underperforming driver will face as much widespread pressure as Hamilton. He's F1's most successful driver ever and its biggest name. Some of the credit he banked as a seven-time world champion had already been used up by his struggles in the ground-effect era Mercedes cars, with 2024 prompting the first proper questions of whether Hamilton has passed his peak, or simply incapable of driving this generation of cars to the same level as the last. It's worryingly reminiscent of Daniel Ricciardo's McLaren and racing bull struggles, where he was routinely baffled by his paceless advantage and unable to match what he could see his team-mate doing. There are flashes of it all clicking together, glimmers of the magic of the Ricciardo or Hamilton of old, but they prove to be false dawns or unrepeatable. And Ricciardo exiting his three-year McLaren deal after only two years was proof that even a long-term contract is no guarantee of a future together. Hamilton isn't anywhere near that stage yet, but his underperformance will be generating mounting pressure from the Ferrari management that approved the mega deal it threw him to acquire his services for at least two years. Hamilton's recruitment was the pet project of Ferrari big boss John Elkin, who was in charge of the gigantic Stellantis Automotive Group. He won't be interested in the nuances of why Hamilton is struggling, he'll just be dissatisfied that his multi-million dollar signing isn't delivering what he should be. You can be assured in a typical Ferrari fashion that mounting pressure from Hamilton and the team's own underperformance will radiate down from above via team boss Vasseur and the rest of the team. Even Liberty and F1 boss Stefano Domenicali will be contributing to that pressure, given it has a business model that needs the competitive Ferrari and its highest profile star to be fighting at the front of the field. But no greater pressure will come from Hamilton himself. He may have already won seven titles, but make no mistake, he gambled with a career switch in order to win title number eight. And rather than fighting for that, he's currently fighting to find a fix through a run of form that's only heading in one direction.