‘He hasn't finished' – F1 team boss and former Lewis Hamilton colleague gives verdict on Brit's Ferrari struggles

The Irish Sun

15-05-2025

LEWIS HAMILTON has been backed to get back to winning ways by Formula One boss James Vowles.
Vowles, now the team principal of the Williams Racing F1 team, worked alongside Hamilton at Mercedes for over ten years as the team achieved unprecedented success in the motorsport.
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Lewis Hamilton has been backed to get back to winning ways by former Mercedes chief James Vowles
Credit: Getty
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Hamilton has struggled to produce results since joining Ferrari at the start of the season
Credit: Getty
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Vowles has led a huge resurgence of Williams Racing since becoming team principal
Credit: AFP
He departed his position as strategy director for the Silver Arrows in January 2023 to become the team principal of Williams Racing with Hamilton then following suit by announcing his exit to Ferrari a year later.
However, despite a Sprint Race win during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, Hamilton has struggled to get the best out of his new drive in 2025.
Indeed, the seven-time world champion is yet to finish above P5 during a Sunday race.
But Vowles - who helped Hamilton to win six of his seven F1 drivers' titles - reckons his old colleague has more to give.
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Speaking to media including Sun Sport during an event at the Williams base this week, the 45-year-old said: "I haven't chatted to him much, but the same adaption you've seen Carlos [Sainz] have to do into our car.
"It's hard to explain, but all of us are going, even though the cars are in the temperature of each other, we are quite different in terms of the philosophies that we're adapting to, where the weight is, where the air balances, how much drag performance, and the front tyres are weaker this year.
"And I think when you merge that all together, it takes a little bit of time for drivers to be able to get up to speed.
"I'd probably say give him time, because he hasn't finished.
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"I think people are reflecting on more than anything else on his qualifying position, but in the racing, he's still there challenging Charles [Leclerc] all the way through.
"So I'm not seeing that he's particularly off the pace, it's just bits that he has to fix on the way."
Lewis Hamilton fumes 'have a tea break while you're at it' at Ferrari staff and refuses to apologise in Miami GP bust-up
After six races of the season, Hamilton has out-qualified Monegasque team-mate
Although Leclerc's own underwhelming race results this season mean they are separated by 12 points with Ferrari down in fourth place in the Constructors' World Championship standings.
During the last race week in Miami, Hamilton had a last-lap collision with the man he replaced at Ferrari,
The iconic team had finished last in the 2022 F1 season before Vowles' arrival but are now running top of the midfield with almost double the points of the team in sixth, Haas.
Williams improvement
Vowles sang the praises of the team at the factory and their "world-class" driver combination of Sainz and Alex Albon.
The pair had been involved in an untelevised radio spat in Miami after Albon overtook Sainz despite having a reliability issue, with Sainz complaining over an alleged team orders break.
But the issue was sorted within two minutes after the race, with Vowles saying the gaffe was down to the pit wall and revealing Sainz had spent 45 minutes offering solutions on how to fix it in the debrief.
He explained how the duo have been instrumental in extracting the best out of the car and believes the gap to the cars in front of them are "only a couple of tenths".
However, Vowles declared he was "not interested" in potentially lucking into a podium and said the team would have to "dig deep" to have a chance to scoring their first top three finish since
He said: "In my world, there's two different types of podiums. One where we've almost lucked into it, and I'm not interested, I mean that can happen this year, but I'm not overly interested in that.
"There's one where we earn it, because we've actually built a car. And that's what made Miami special.
"We were there fighting, not because six other cars in front of us disappeared, but we were there fighting on their end.
"You can see what the gaps are, it's actually just a matter of a couple of tenths now is what we're missing in order for that to happen, and a track rarities and expose our vices.
"So the difficulty will be this, it's a relative gain, in fact most of the teams you're already hearing are bringing up base in the last race, Red Bull Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, there are definitely three other teams, so the interest is to see what the next movement will be.
"It's a couple of tenths, I'm just not sure we have the ability to find that within this year without focusing on next year. We're obviously going to dig deep and see what we can find in it."
The Imola Grand Prix is up next this weekend but follows reports the iconic circuit could drop off the F1 calendar.
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Vowles sung the praises of Williams drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon
Credit: Getty
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