Lewis Hamilton endured a disastrous 2025 season without a single podium to his name.

Lewis Hamilton has been defended by Michael Schumacher’s former engineer (Image: Getty)

Michael Schumacher’s former engineer believes Ferrari are largely to blame for Lewis Hamilton’s current plight. The veteran Brit failed to achieve a single podium in 2025, with his sprint victory in China the sole highlight of an otherwise disappointing season. He lagged behind Charles Leclerc for much of the campaign and ended up finishing seventh in the Drivers’ Championship standings.

Hamilton’s dire form has led to questions over whether he is no longer as quick as he used to be, fuelling speculation that he could quit F1 in the coming years. Others, however, have pointed the finger at Ferrari for failing to provide the 40-year-old with a competitive car. Luigi Mazzola, who previously worked with Schumacher, believes the latter is the most accurate assessment.

He told NewsF1: “I’m certainly not putting all the blame on Hamilton. No, it’s not all Hamilton’s fault. I place a large portion of the responsibility on the team itself.

“It cannot be the case that after 24 races the team still does not know how this character drives a car, or at least does not give him a car that he is consistently happy with.”

Mazzola also listed a number of other factors that may have contributed to Hamilton’s struggles, including the language barrier, cultural changes and the new procedures that come with moving teams.

However, he added: “What’s all the fuss about when he’s in the car? A driver isolates himself and withdraws when he has a car he can’t drive. That’s what surprises me a bit.

“I can’t even blame the race engineer. They’re under a lot of pressure. I don’t know how much freedom the race engineer actually has to decide what to do with the car.”

Luigi Mazzola (right) has blamed Ferrari for Hamilton’s recent struggles (Image: Getty)

Mazzola reinforced his point with a story from his time working at Ferrari, saying: “I’m telling this from personal experience, because I experienced it myself in the 1990s when I worked with [Alain] Prost.

“On the other side was [Jean] Alesi, and the guru of the situation at that time was Jean-Claude Migot, purely an aerodynamicist. He dictated certain directions for how the car should be set up.

“If the driver couldn’t drive the car, I would wait until Saturday, until he left, and then I would change everything on Saturday morning.

“And Gerhard [Berger] would come to me and say: ‘I can’t drive it.’ ‘Yes, I know you can’t drive it, but what were we supposed to do?’.”

It remains to be seen if Hamilton’s fortunes will improve in 2026, with the new regulations offering Ferrari a clean slate when it comes to producing a competitive car.