Ferrari ‘screwed’ with two-fold Lewis Hamilton warning issued
2025
Former F1 driver Lucas di Grassi has questioned Ferrari’s decision to hire Lewis Hamilton as he is “expensive” and also past his “prime”.
Next season Hamilton will fulfill a boyhood dream when he dons the red of Ferrari at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, joining the Scuderia after 12 years with Mercedes.
Is Lewis Hamilton past his prime?
The seven-time World Champion contested his final Grand Prix with Mercedes last Sunday, racing from 16th on grid to fourth at the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi in what his team boss Toto Wolff called a “World Champion” drive.
That Sunday though, was just one of a handful of highlights for the Briton in what had been a mixed final season with Mercedes.
Although Hamilton did take to the top step of the podium in F1 2024, P1 at the British and Belgian Grands Prix, he lost his head-to-head tussles against his team-mate George Russell including the qualifying one.
Trailing Russell 19-5, even Hamilton’s former team-mate Jenson Button pondered whether age had caught up with the 39-year-old.
You are racing against 20-year-olds, your reactions however good they are, are still not going to be as good as a 20-year-old’s reactions,” said the 2009 F1 World Champion.
“You can possibly lose that slight edge which wouldn’t show up in a race but I think in qualifying that is where it does become a little bit more difficult.”
But while Button was magnanimous in his comments, former F1 driver di Grassi simply said he believes Hamilton is past his prime and Ferrari have made a mistake.
“I never would hire Hamilton for Ferrari if I were to get screwed,” he told Motorsport.com’s Brazilian YouTube channel.
Di Grassi’s warning comes on the back of Hamilton’s mixed final season with Mercedes, the Briton finishing outside the top six in the Drivers’ Championship for the first time in his 18 years in the sport.
It had the Briton’s long-term team boss Toto Wolff stating that “everyone has a shelf life” in a newly published book ‘Mercedes F1: Life in the fast lane’.
He did later clarify that but his point remains that everyone ages.
What I was referring to is that all of us, we age, and whether it’s in the car, on a pitch, or as a manager and entrepreneur, you have to, and this is what I’m trying to do with myself, understand am I going from great to good,” he said.
“Because good is not in Formula 1 anymore.
“Now, contrary to my own self-assessment, I think we see with Lewis that he’s very much there when the car is right. And we haven’t been able to give him that car for him to perform best and that is a frustration that we equally have in the team and for himself.
“But he’s very sharp. He’s different to when he was a 20-year-old, that’s certainly clear. His experience and his race craft is tremendous.”
Ferrari ‘screwed’ with two-fold Lewis Hamilton warning issued
2025
Former F1 driver Lucas di Grassi has questioned Ferrari’s decision to hire Lewis Hamilton as he is “expensive” and also past his “prime”.
Next season Hamilton will fulfill a boyhood dream when he dons the red of Ferrari at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, joining the Scuderia after 12 years with Mercedes.
Is Lewis Hamilton past his prime?
The seven-time World Champion contested his final Grand Prix with Mercedes last Sunday, racing from 16th on grid to fourth at the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi in what his team boss Toto Wolff called a “World Champion” drive.
That Sunday though, was just one of a handful of highlights for the Briton in what had been a mixed final season with Mercedes.
Although Hamilton did take to the top step of the podium in F1 2024, P1 at the British and Belgian Grands Prix, he lost his head-to-head tussles against his team-mate George Russell including the qualifying one.
Trailing Russell 19-5, even Hamilton’s former team-mate Jenson Button pondered whether age had caught up with the 39-year-old.
You are racing against 20-year-olds, your reactions however good they are, are still not going to be as good as a 20-year-old’s reactions,” said the 2009 F1 World Champion.
“You can possibly lose that slight edge which wouldn’t show up in a race but I think in qualifying that is where it does become a little bit more difficult.”
But while Button was magnanimous in his comments, former F1 driver di Grassi simply said he believes Hamilton is past his prime and Ferrari have made a mistake.
“I never would hire Hamilton for Ferrari if I were to get screwed,” he told Motorsport.com’s Brazilian YouTube channel.
Di Grassi’s warning comes on the back of Hamilton’s mixed final season with Mercedes, the Briton finishing outside the top six in the Drivers’ Championship for the first time in his 18 years in the sport.
It had the Briton’s long-term team boss Toto Wolff stating that “everyone has a shelf life” in a newly published book ‘Mercedes F1: Life in the fast lane’.
He did later clarify that but his point remains that everyone ages.
What I was referring to is that all of us, we age, and whether it’s in the car, on a pitch, or as a manager and entrepreneur, you have to, and this is what I’m trying to do with myself, understand am I going from great to good,” he said.
“Because good is not in Formula 1 anymore.
“Now, contrary to my own self-assessment, I think we see with Lewis that he’s very much there when the car is right. And we haven’t been able to give him that car for him to perform best and that is a frustration that we equally have in the team and for himself.
“But he’s very sharp. He’s different to when he was a 20-year-old, that’s certainly clear. His experience and his race craft is tremendous.”
Ferrari ‘screwed’ with two-fold Lewis Hamilton warning issued
2025
Former F1 driver Lucas di Grassi has questioned Ferrari’s decision to hire Lewis Hamilton as he is “expensive” and also past his “prime”.
Next season Hamilton will fulfill a boyhood dream when he dons the red of Ferrari at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, joining the Scuderia after 12 years with Mercedes.
Is Lewis Hamilton past his prime?
The seven-time World Champion contested his final Grand Prix with Mercedes last Sunday, racing from 16th on grid to fourth at the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi in what his team boss Toto Wolff called a “World Champion” drive.
That Sunday though, was just one of a handful of highlights for the Briton in what had been a mixed final season with Mercedes.
Although Hamilton did take to the top step of the podium in F1 2024, P1 at the British and Belgian Grands Prix, he lost his head-to-head tussles against his team-mate George Russell including the qualifying one.
Trailing Russell 19-5, even Hamilton’s former team-mate Jenson Button pondered whether age had caught up with the 39-year-old.
You are racing against 20-year-olds, your reactions however good they are, are still not going to be as good as a 20-year-old’s reactions,” said the 2009 F1 World Champion.
“You can possibly lose that slight edge which wouldn’t show up in a race but I think in qualifying that is where it does become a little bit more difficult.”
But while Button was magnanimous in his comments, former F1 driver di Grassi simply said he believes Hamilton is past his prime and Ferrari have made a mistake.
“I never would hire Hamilton for Ferrari if I were to get screwed,” he told Motorsport.com’s Brazilian YouTube channel.
Di Grassi’s warning comes on the back of Hamilton’s mixed final season with Mercedes, the Briton finishing outside the top six in the Drivers’ Championship for the first time in his 18 years in the sport.
It had the Briton’s long-term team boss Toto Wolff stating that “everyone has a shelf life” in a newly published book ‘Mercedes F1: Life in the fast lane’.
He did later clarify that but his point remains that everyone ages.
What I was referring to is that all of us, we age, and whether it’s in the car, on a pitch, or as a manager and entrepreneur, you have to, and this is what I’m trying to do with myself, understand am I going from great to good,” he said.
“Because good is not in Formula 1 anymore.
“Now, contrary to my own self-assessment, I think we see with Lewis that he’s very much there when the car is right. And we haven’t been able to give him that car for him to perform best and that is a frustration that we equally have in the team and for himself.
“But he’s very sharp. He’s different to when he was a 20-year-old, that’s certainly clear. His experience and his race craft is tremendous.”
