Lewis Hamilton Approaching Shocking Ferrari Milestone Amid Struggles
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton is on the verge of making history with the Italian team, just not the kind that was expecting when he first joined.
Hamilton made the switch from Mercedes to Ferrari last season and embarked on a goodbye tour with his longtime team.
After a long season, the seven-time World Champion officially moved over to Formula 1's most well-known team.
Hamilton set expectations high for his tenure at Ferrari, hoping to win a storybook eighth title with his role model Michael Schumacher's old team.
Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari looks on in the Drivers Press Conference during previews ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Belgium at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on July 24, 2025 in Spa,...
Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari looks on in the Drivers Press Conference during previews ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Belgium at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on July 24, 2025 in Spa, Belgium. More
Photo byDespite all of the hoopla, the British icon has struggled to meet expectations this season. He is sixth in the standings with 109 points, though he hasn't achieved a race win or podium as of yet.
According to Sundaram R, known as @f1statsguru on X, Hamilton sits third all-time on the list for Ferrari drivers with the most races without scoring a podium.
Hamilton has 13 races without a podium, only six away from tying the leader, Didier Pironi, for the most races without a podium.
13 races. 0 podiums.
Lewis Hamilton has now gone longer than most before tasting champagne in Ferrari red.
He's third on the all-time list for most races before a first Ferrari podium, a list no legend wants to be on.
The wait continues… pic.twitter.com/Wftmj4esLX — Sundaram R (@f1statsguru) July 28, 2025
There is a considerable amount of context that explains the lack of success for Hamilton. He is still adjusting to another team based in a different country that has vastly different practices from Mercedes.
His teammate, Charles Leclerc, has captured a handful of podiums through magical driving, but the car is not capable of consistently netting a top-three finish.
The SF-25 is far from the car that McLaren has, making third place the highest possible result unless Oscar Piastri or Lando Norris make a mistake.
Even then, Mercedes or Max Verstappen lie in wait as potential threats to a podium.
The combination of a new team and a mediocre car has put Hamilton on the back foot over the first half of the season, but the champion isn't giving up on himself.
"The reason for it is that I see a huge amount of potential within this team," Hamilton told reporters ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.
"The passion, nothing comes close to that. It is a huge organisation and there's a lot of moving parts, and not all of them firing on all the cylinders they need to be.
"That's ultimately why the team's not had the success that I think it deserves. I feel that it's my job to challenge absolutely every area, to challenge everybody in the team, particularly the guys at the top who are making the decisions.
"If you look at the team over the last 20 years, they've had amazing drivers. They had Kimi [Raikkonen], they had Fernando [Alonso], they had Sebastian [Vettel], all World Champions; however, they didn't win a World Champion[ship], and for me, I refuse for that to be the case, so I'm going the extra mile.
"Obviously I'm very fortunate to have had experiences in two other great teams, and whilst things are for sure going to be different because there's a different culture and everything, I think sometimes if you take the same path all the time you get the same results, so I'm just challenging certain things."
For more F1 news, head on over to Newsweek Sports.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC Sports
3 hours ago
- NBC Sports
Stephanie Venier retires as world champion in super-G
Austrian Stephanie Venier is retiring from Alpine skiing, six months after winning her first senior world title and six months before the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Venier, 31, said she considered retirement 'for some time' and that recurring knee problems played a role in the decision. 'As the saying goes: The peak of your career is the best time to retire,' she said, according to an Austrian ski federation press release. 'That's why I'm turning my back on ski racing and am very much looking forward to everything that's still to come.' This past Feb. 6, Venier won the super-G at the World Championships on home snow in Saalbach, edging Italian Federica Brignone by one tenth of a second. Venier, at the time ranked ninth in the World Cup super-G standings, earned her second world championships medal — eight years after taking downhill silver. She became the oldest woman to win a world super-G title and the oldest Austrian woman to win world championships gold in any individual event. 'The thought of ending my career isn't entirely new and has been brewing in my mind for some time,' she said, according to Thursday's release. 'But I wanted to take enough time for this drastic decision, because once I've made it, there's no turning back. The unwavering will required for elite sport has simply not been there in recent months to the extent I expect it to be. I more than fulfilled my greatest dream of winning a medal at the home World Championships in Saalbach with a gold and a bronze (in the team combined). Even though the Olympic Games are coming up next year, it feels like the right time for me to draw a line under my racing career. I look back on what I've achieved with great satisfaction.' The other top women's super-G skiers last season included Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami, who won the World Cup season title in the event. Gut-Behrami has said 2025-26 will be her final season. Brignone ranked second behind Gut-Behrami on the World Cup. The Italian is working her way back after breaking her left leg in a giant slalom crash on April 3. The top American super-G skiers are Lauren Macuga, who shared bronze at worlds and ranked sixth on the World Cup, and Lindsey Vonn, who placed second in the World Cup Finals super-G in March. That marked Vonn's first podium in her comeback from a five-year retirement. Nick Zaccardi,
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Burnley sign Newcastle goalkeeper Dubravka
Burnley have signed Slovakia goalkeeper Martin Dubravka from Newcastle United on a one-year contract, for an undisclosed fee. The 36-year-old initially joined the Magpies on loan from Sparta Prague in January 2018 and kept 51 clean sheets in 179 appearances in all competitions during his seven-and-a-half years at St James' Park. He played a key role in Newcastle's Carabao Cup win last season, keeping three clean sheets, including in each leg of the semi-final victory over Arsenal. Burnley had been looking to replace James Trafford, 22, who rejoined Manchester City in July in a deal which the Clarets say is a new record fee for a British goalkeeper. "I've only heard really positive things about the club, the culture and the environment we work in," Dubravka told Burnley's website. The Lancashire side were promoted to the Premier League after going on a 33-game unbeaten run in 2024-25 and reaching 100 points in the Championship. However, they just missed out on the title to Leeds United on goal difference. Dubravka added: "Burnley had a fantastic campaign last season, built on a superb defensive record, and I can't wait to come in and add my experience and quality to what looks an exciting squad of players." Latest Burnley news, analysis and fan views Get Burnley news sent straight to your phone
Newsweek
4 hours ago
- Newsweek
Car Companies Will Go Out of Business, Auto Industry COO Predicts
The global auto industry is in danger, warns an expert who deals with the behind-the-scenes technology and innovation automakers are looking to bring to market up to a decade down the road. John Wall, chief operating officer and head of product, engineering and services at QNX, told Newsweek, "The Chinese are moving very quickly." China's auto industry is booming. Since 2009, China has been the world's largest automotive manufacturing country and automotive market. Chinese car makers account for one-third of the world's vehicle production. "It's super competitive in China. There are a lot of original equipment manufacturers that are competing with each other," Wall said. And, they're starting to compete with European and American automakers as well as other companies from Asia, including those from Japan and Korea. "They're competing with each other by putting out features very quickly. They're competing by cutting costs, cutting prices of vehicles. There are going to be losers in China. There are going to be car companies that go out of business," he continued. QNX, a BlackBerry company, sees the future of automotive well before the public. They supply a variety of technology solutions to automakers and offer support for their systems, which are in 255 million vehicles that are on the road today. Wall's verdict about American carmakers is damning: "They're not keeping pace." He said: "There's many reasons why they're not keeping pace. The Chinese don't have a legacy of supporting back models and all that baggage that Ford and BMW and Mercedes and Volkswagen have. That's the number one advantage. The second advantage is the Chinese are less focused on safety, so they're going fast and they're maybe cutting corners." "What I'm saying is the state-of-the-art processes for software development in a functional, safe context, is not being followed by the Chinese. The reality of it is, if you're Mercedes or you're Ford or you're GM, you can't have an accident... There's so much legacy, there's so much reputational baggage. Mercedes can't have cars that drive into walls. It just can't happen," Wall said. Car companies are bringing features to cars that a half-decade ago seemed nearly impossible, and they're doing it at great expense. "I think what the speed of the Chinese has done is it has pointed out to the more traditional car makers, this focus on doing everything yourself is a mistake. There are things that bring value. There are areas you don't bring value, and I think it's becoming very recognized in the industry," Wall said. He continued: "A lot of people are spending a lot of time on platforms that provide no value to the customer, provide no differentiation for a car brand. It would behoove the auto industry to be able to start at a higher-level application development and not to be wasting time on things that are non-differentiating, but are very important. They have to work properly. If your base is weak, just like the foundation of a house, you're going to have a problem. Each misstep costs money, sometimes billions of dollars. "If you look at what's happened with Volkswagen and Cariad, if you look at the money spent at Ford, at GM, the layoffs, the starts and stops to their strategy. That's time and money, and it's debatable whether those groups were really focused on the right things." QNX aims to provide a technology architecture to car companies that allows them to compete with the fast-moving Chinese brands. The technology combines software and hardware that would traditionally be sold in separate lots as a package. "Our belief is, if you provide something that is non-differentiating, that allows the car makers to save money and to go faster, they're going to be interested. It's a value proposition. The reality of it is the Chinese would be interested. The Chinese are interested because anything that helps them go faster is better, and especially with their looking to export markets, they will have to have a much closer eye on functional safety and security," Wall said.
