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Ferrari’s strong start to the 2024 Formula 1 season relative to Mercedes appeared to vindicate Lewis Hamilton’s decision to head to Maranello.
Ferrari’s subsequent slide to fourth best with a car suffering from porpoising problems, combined with Mercedes finally cracking F1’s ground effect regulations, means the opposite narrative now prevails.
So should the man who has won two of the last three grands prix regret his 2025 decision?
First and foremost, Hamilton gives short shrift to the opinions of the chattering classes. As he said in China back in April: “I don’t feel like I need my decision vindicating”. And every time he’s asked the question, he gives a similar answer about it being the right decision.
But he’s also a human being and the dramatic change in trajectories of Ferrari and Mercedes will not have gone unnoticed, so it would be unusual for there not to be at least a moment where he’s contemplated the possibility of Mercedes being a title threat in 2025 and Ferrari struggling. However, it’s doubtful that will have occupied much of his time.
The relative performance of Ferrari and Mercedes must have played a part in the decision when it was made, but Hamilton will have considered the move from all angles before he signed up.
He will have understood the risk he might move to a team that will be less competitive than had he stayed at Mercedes in 2025. What happens on track over this season doesn’t change that and it would be absurd for his contentment with the Ferrari deal to rise and fall with the immediate competitive tides.
The big, longer-term, picture will always have been critical for Hamilton. Team principal Fred Vasseur’s Ferrari rebuild was an important factor and the general trend since the start of his regime is positive. Likewise, there’s every chance Hamilton felt a change of team and a fresh challenge was necessary at this stage of his career. A few difficult weekends for Ferrari don’t change either of those factors.
Ferrari's mid-2024 problems
There’s no doubt he will follow Ferrari’s progress after the August break with interest. The upgrade package introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix promoted increased bouncing that mitigated the impact of the new parts.
While they worked well below the threshold at which the porpoising was set off, it kicked off a stretch of the season where Ferrari was firmly fourth-best.
There was a small tweak for the Hungary/Belgium double-header designed to mitigate the problem, but the full floor upgrade needed to eliminate it won’t follow until after the summer break.
This could be a sliding-doors moment for Ferrari. The change could fix the problem, keep the positives of the Spain upgrade and launch itself back into the thick of the fight. Or it won't work and the team will face ongoing issues.
The main concern is that Ferrari’s problem wasn’t necessarily created by the Spain package. As Carlos Sainz has explained, the porpoising was evident even before that but it wasn’t serious enough to cause significant problems. The more aggressive floor upgrade increased the porpoising's severity to a point where it became costly.
Therefore, to get the situation completely under control, it’s possible that Ferrari might have to take more than one step back. Sainz has also hinted that he feels his feedback wasn’t listened to, in response to a question asked by The Race in Hungary last month.
Asked whether he felt it was necessary for Ferrari to go through the problems with its Spain upgrade to fully understand the bouncing situation, Sainz replied: “I have my own theory about it. Obviously, I have been complaining about bouncing before the upgrades.”
Sainz didn’t elaborate, but it seems reasonable to infer from his response that he felt Ferrari should have recognised the problem earlier and tackled it rather than going down a development path that actually increased it.
However, that’s done and the key now is proving it can recover. If Ferrari struggles throughout the second half of the season, that might concern Hamilton, but there’s also every chance it will get back on track.
WHAT HAMILTON MIGHT BE THINKING
Deciding when to make a team move in F1 is an inexact science based on necessarily incomplete data. Hamilton has only made one move in his career and nailed it, leaving McLaren to join Mercedes in 2013 at a point where it had broken through as a winning team and going into a season when it was a frontrunner. Then followed the extraordinary Mercedes dominance of 2014-2021 that yielded eight constructors’ championships and seven drivers’ titles – six for Hamilton.
It remains to be seen how the Ferrari move will pan out, but what doubts there were about Ferrari’s ability to get back to title-winning ways shouldn’t be impacted by this recent run given a team’s technical progress is rarely a constant upward arrow under these regulations.
If Hamilton were to have his faith in the move shaken to its core by a run of five troubled weekends for Ferrari then you’d have to question his reasoning in the first place. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that his confidence in the decision hasn’t been shaken.
Whether that will remain the same if Ferrari continues to be fourth-best and battling porpoising problems across the second half of the season is another question.
Either way, Hamilton won’t waste much energy on contemplating it given he’s got a season to finish, and doing so on a high will be the ideal way to prepare for the Ferrari move. And whatever happens, he’s made his choice so the die is cast.
Just as it was six months ago, his focus will be on ensuring he hits the ground running with his personal performance for Ferrari when 2025 starts, regardless of how competitive the car is.
