Lewis Hamilton’s year of misery at Ferrari: 5 stats that encapsulate the driver’s nightmare season

When Lewis Hamilton first announced that he was joining Ferrari, the excitement and the anticipation around the most successful driver joining the most successful team were immense. The team had not achieved much success in the sport in the last two decades, while the driver has been the benchmark during that time. When the two came together, there was an anticipation that he was going to be the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle that would take the team to the top. 11 months into the partnership, and it is safe to say that the hopes and dreams of many fans have taken a beating. The partnership has not proven to be the success that many hoped it would be. Lewis Hamilton himself has termed his stint at Ferrari a nightmare so far, and unfortunately, the numbers indicate the same thing. Let’s take a look. Lewis Hamilton’s disastrous first season with Ferrari #1 Most races for a Ferrari driver before scoring a podium When it comes to picking up unwanted records, Lewis Hamilton has picked up a few this season. The first of them is the fact that he’s yet to secure a podium in a Ferrari this year. In Qatar, we would be in the 23rd race of the season, and already, we’ve reached a point where Lewis Hamilton is now the driver who has done the most races for Ferrari without finishing on the podium. The record first belonged to Didier Pironi, who achieved the unwanted feat in the 1980s, and now, four decades later, it has gone to Lewis. #2 Worst qualifying position since Giancarlo Fisichella in 2009 At the F1 Las Vegas GP, Lewis Hamilton qualified in P20 for the race, and this was not a result of some reliability issues as such. This was entirely on performance. The last time a Ferrari driver qualified in P20 on performance was Giancarlo Fisichella in 2009. Some context is important here, though, because at that time, Fisichella was a late-season replacement on the team and had no preseason testing to understand the car. At Las Vegas, Lewis equaled that unwanted feat for a Ferrari when he could only put together a lap that was good enough for P20. #3 Worst F1 season in terms of number of podiums The thing about Lewis Hamilton’s career is that it has been full of success. In his very first year in F1, he got his hands on a title-contending car in McLaren. Since then, he’s spent almost two decades driving a front-running car. At no point in his career has he put together a season with fewer than 5 podiums to his name. All of that was true prior to 2025, unfortunately, as with only two races left in the season, Lewis Hamilton is yet to score a podium and would, in essence, have his worst season in terms of number of podiums. #4 In a season where Nico Hulkenberg and Isack Hadjar have scored podiums, Lewis Hamilton hasn’t The 2025 F1 season has been one of the better ones when it comes to the variability of results. This season we’ve had as many as 9 different podium finishers from 7 different teams. We’ve had Nico Hulkenberg breaking his podium duck in Silverstone, and then we’ve had Isack Hadjar picking up his first ever podium in F1. You look at that, and it makes Lewis Hamilton’s tally even worse. The Brit has not secured even a single podium in red. In the race where Hulkenberg secured a podium, he beat Hamilton in a Ferrari that should have finished ahead. In the race where Isack Hadjar secured a podium, Lewis Hamilton crashed out. For a driver who has built a season around seizing the moments, 2025 has not been up to par. #5 Horrible head-to-head numbers against teammate Charles Leclerc Arguably, the numbers that every driver on the grid tends to look at are what his teammate has been doing in the same car. For Hamilton, this is a woeful read because he has been decimated in every category, it seems. Charles Leclerc has a pole position for Ferrari this season, Hamilton has none. Leclerc has 7 podium finishes; Hamilton has none. Then we move to the race head-to-head, and Hamilton has finished ahead of his teammate only three times this season. Out of these three races, one was Imola, where Leclerc got heavily compromised by strategy, and the other was Baku, where Hamilton didn’t give back the position to his teammate. These are not the numbers that Hamilton can look at and be proud of. More importantly, these are not the numbers Ferrari would have expected from the driver when he was signed by the team.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/lewis-hamilton-s-year-misery-ferrari-5-stats-encapsulate-driver-s-nightmare-season