Why Lewis Hamilton’s Dutch GP crash doesn’t paint the full picture

On paper, Lewis Hamilton’s troubled F1 2025 season continued at Zandvoort as the seven-time F1 World Champion binned his Ferrari at Hugenholtz, but there are signs that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Hamilton struck a forlorn figure as he clambered out of his broken SF-25, trudging over to the remnants of his front wing lying in the grass in front of the car, ending a weekend that seemed to encapsulate the ups and downs of what has been a troubled maiden campaign with the Scuderia.

Lewis Hamilton’s Dutch GP crash is a mere snapshot in time

The crash, in terms of the bigger picture, is an inconsequential snapshot of misfortune and does little other than muddy the true picture of where Hamilton and Ferrari truly are at this point in their maiden season together.

After all, this is supposed to be a year in which Ferrari has given Hamilton all the time he needs to find his feet within the team’s operations, get to grips with a different car design philosophy, gain an understanding of how the organisation is glued together as a whole, and use his experience and knowledge from Mercedes to help create a championship-winning entity once again.

If Hamilton ‘plugged and played’ in and yielded immediate results, all the better.

But what has become clear in this current ground-effect era is that such immediate adaptation is very difficult for drivers, especially for those changing teams and trying to compensate for the foibles and intricacies that had become instinctual in their previous cars.

The demands of this acclimatisation are clearly not minor – one only has to look at Carlos Sainz, a driver who was consistently at the front at the end of 2024 in the car Hamilton now occupies, having a similarly complex year alongside Alex Albon. It’s a similar story for Liam Lawson and Franco Colapinto, although their comparative inexperience does muddy the waters.

Of course, one might expect Hamilton to adjust faster, given his pedigree, but his increasingly morose deportment through this year suggests he wasn’t expecting it to be quite as difficult as it has been and, perhaps, suggests that his struggles last year at Mercedes weren’t merely down to him needing a change of scenery.

Has Hamilton performed at the level he should be at considering the vast sums of money being thrown his way? It’s difficult to argue that he has, or that Ferrari is getting the value, on-track, from him that it perhaps might have thought at this point of their first season together. In such circumstances, disappointment can turn to resentment very quickly, and Ferrari isn’t well-known for its ability to remain calm in the face of adversity.

First Fred Vasseur, now Lewis Hamilton faces the pressure

As is typical for matters involving Ferrari, matters can get overblown – whether that be through the pressures applied to the team by nationalistic media, or the internal turning of the screw that has seen the Scuderia, far too often, respond to bad moments with knee-jerk chessboard rearrangements.

Even recently, there was a threat of this as Vasseur’s job came under the spotlight as speculation suggested his superiors had evaluated other options – including then-Red Bull boss Christian Horner – to succeed him with his contract coming to an end, and having had a backward step relative to the team’s nearest rivals over the winter, suspected to be due to a change in suspension design philosophy.

Less than three years into the job, Vasseur appeared to have come under pressure in what would have been a particularly short tenure, even by Ferrari standards, with the rumours even suggesting that Vasseur’s signing of Hamilton, lauded as a great triumph throughout 2024, could have been his downfall due to the British driver’s failure to hit the ground running.

But, cooler heads prevailed against the rash and the heated emotions of the speculation – which Vasseur recently explained had left him enraged.

With Vasseur’s future finally assured by way of a new contract, that speculation and microscope has switched to Hamilton, particularly after a tough middle part of the season where Leclerc has clearly been the superior of the two, while the seven-time F1 World Champion has toiled. An anonymous 12th in Hungary, on a day where Leclerc had a bad day but still finished fourth, highlighted his struggles to end the first half of the season.

Is it any surprise, then, that off the back of a wave of this pressure, on Thursday at Zandvoort, Hamilton was the subdued and quiet version of himself that we’ve seen, consistently, through his career when things haven’t gone his way? Hiding behind the zipper of his jacket, Hamilton was visibly apprehensive and guarded as he sat down for his scheduled media session with the assembled journalists, clearly expecting a deluge about how miserable things are.

It took a while for Hamilton to warm up to the questions, an inquisition that didn’t avoid the elephant in the room but was without malice or venom.

Admitting that the first half of the season hadn’t been particularly enjoyable, having arrived on a wave of hype and excitement, he explained that he is changing up a few things in his approach after taking the time to do a mental reset during the few weeks off, revealing his determination to get back to finding the “sunnier days” through what is a tough patch.

“I think that’s probably the most important part, because that’s the reason I got into this sport. It was fun for me,” he said, when asked how important it is to find enjoyment and fun in what he’s doing so long into a career that has had unprecedented highs.

“For anyone, in any career you’re in, if you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, then why are you doing it?

“There can often be so much noise, you can lose sight of what’s important. I just really want to focus on getting back to that enjoyment.

“I’ve joined the team I’ve always dreamed of driving for, and there’s been so much noise around that it’s kind of clouded us from getting to enjoy it.

“Now it’s about moving those things aside and getting back to focusing on the pure love of what we do.”

Dutch GP offers positives despite the misfortunes

24 hours later, Hamilton was coming off the back of what Vasseur said was one of the worst Fridays for Ferrari in recent years, with Hamilton’s contribution to that being a spin in FP1 and another one in FP2.

But a diligent night of work with the team that night saw a big turnaround on Saturday, and Hamilton was just half a tenth down on Leclerc in qualifying as the pair placed their Ferraris in the middle of the top 10.

Hamilton then followed that up with a race performance that was the equal of Leclerc’s over the first 22 laps as the Monegasque, Mercedes’ George Russell, and Hamilton all circulated within three seconds of each other over this period.

Just seconds after Leclerc’s pitstop, Hamilton made his minor but calamitous error – one which also had the unfortunate side effect of compromising Leclerc’s race due to giving others the chance to stop under the Safety Car.

It was an error that, in isolation, continues to make it very easy to suggest that Hamilton is not the force he once was, and doom-mongers can argue that his move to Ferrari has been one of misjudgement, for both sides.

But that would still be a somewhat short-sighted view, even if those theories could still turn out to be true. Hamilton has shown flashes this year of being able to match Leclerc and, when the conditions are right, like in the Chinese Sprint race, that latent brilliance is still lurking under the surface.

Is it as easy and natural for Hamilton to access as it once was? Based on the evidence we have, absolutely not, but his unparalleled excellence over such a long period between 2007 and recent years does buy him some considerable grace period, that being last year, and this season.

Should Hamilton continue in this vein next year, following the complete reset of the regulations that will mean he’s not coming in at a disadvantage to Leclerc and also moves away from the more specific demands of the ground-effect cars, then the British driver truly will have to fear that Ferrari will lose faith and that his career will stutter out in ignominious fashion.

Or, perhaps, he will reach the realisation himself that his powers have waned and that the Hamilton of today simply cannot do what once was so effortless on track, so instinctual, that coming to terms with that can create a spiral of doubt regarding self-identity and confidence.

But that point hasn’t yet arrived. Mid-season panicking in a year of adjustment and acclimatisation benefits no-one, but nor would taking a blase attitude towards the struggles. Given he’s raking it in either way, Hamilton could simply view this as his chance to line his retirement nest and be completely unbothered by his performance level, which is below that of an already generous allowance given the acclimatisation and team switch factors.

To Hamilton’s credit, he is clearly acutely aware of the fact he isn’t meeting these expectations yet, and his holding himself to the standards he puts in place for himself is evidenced by his sad demurity, if not embarrassment.

This humility and self-awareness is entirely the correct attitude to have, and has ensured that the tifosi, and the team, hasn’t turned on him, as he’s pointed the finger of blame firmly back on himself.

It’s even led to Vasseur recently pointing out Hamilton’s own melodramatic nature by saying that his reactions are “too extreme” and make things worse as a result, but this willingness to accept his own shortcomings will mean Hamilton should still receive a hero’s welcome at Monza this weekend.

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc head-to-head in F1 2025

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Reasons to be cheerful

As one insider expressed to this writer during the Dutch GP weekend, Ferrari is waiting for Hamilton still to do something great. But the patience is there, afforded to him by a team boss who has only recently come through similar scrutinies and pressures.

To quote the late Ian Dury, there are reasons to be cheerful for Hamilton, with a case for optimism following a dramatic weekend in the Netherlands.

It would have been all too easy to come back from his crash, head down and morose once again, but, instead, the Hamilton who spoke to the media was surprisingly upbeat for the circumstances.

Describing how coming away from the weekend was nonetheless “painful”, he pointed out how he felt he’d made a lot of progress, and was feeling fine mentally – something one can argue would be quite easy to spot if it were untrue, based on how Hamilton wears his heart on his sleeve.

Certainly, Vasseur was similarly reassured, saying he had seen from Hamilton a first reaction that was “more positive for the weekend” and that “the confidence is back”.

“It’s largely a matter of results, and the confidence and pace and the fact that you are in the game,” Vasseur summed up.

“Honestly, Lewis had the perception today was much better, even if the outcome is not. He was able to fight and keep up and race – for himself, I think it’s good and it’s like this that he will enjoy.”

Walking away from a weekend with a car in the wall and carbon fibre littered all over the track might not be a great look but, for the first time in quite a while, Ferrari and Hamilton can feel hope that the toughest part of this acclimatisation together is behind them.

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