Fred Vasseur has opened up on Lewis Hamilton’s start to life at Ferrari.

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Fred Vasseur has explained that the differing career paths of Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton indicate why the seven-time world champion is struggling so much with his new team. Hamilton joined Ferrari to intense fanfare during the off-season, with vast crowds of the Tifosi travelling to Maranello and the Fiorano test track to witness his first moments behind the wheel of his new machinery.

Unfortunately for the Brit, however, positive results have been hard to come by in 2025. With 10 races remaining of the 2025 season, Hamilton sits sixth in the Drivers’ Championship standings, 42 points behind team-mate Charles Leclerc. Critically, the 40-year-old is still waiting for his first podium finish with Ferrari, while his colleague in red has already had five this year.

These struggles have been compared to Sainz’s performances, who was cast aside to make room for Hamilton before recording the first multi-win season of his career in 2024. Vasseur believes that the extra time needed for the new recruit to adapt is linked to the length of his Mercedes tenure.

“It’s often the circumstances, and Lewis has been unlucky a lot recently,” Vasseur told Auto Motor und Sport. “In Budapest, he was ahead of Charles in Q1 and only a tenth slower in Q2. He was 15 thousandths of a second short of advancing.

“In the end, one finished first and the other twelfth. That looks stupid, of course. But we weren’t far off, and we would have finished eleventh and twelfth with our two drivers. Looking back, I have to admit that we – and by that I mean Lewis and I – underestimated the change to a different environment.

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“He had been with the same team for 18 years before that, if I can call McLaren and Mercedes our home. It was an English team, and the engine environment always remained the same.

“There’s a bigger difference between Ferrari and Mercedes than between Mercedes and McLaren. When Lewis arrived at Ferrari, we naively thought he would have everything under control.

“He’s not like Carlos Sainz, who changes teams every few years and would be familiar with this process. It took Lewis four or five races to get the situation under control. Since the Canadian GP, he’s actually been on track.”

Sainz is experiencing his own struggles in his new environment. Alex Albon has scored 54 of Williams’ 70 points this season, while the four-time Grand Prix winner has only finished in the top 10 six times with no finishes higher than eighth.