Lewis Hamilton ‘complacency’ under heavy scrutiny after ‘big’ Ferrari ‘shock’
Lewis Hamilton fastens his helmet in the Ferrari garage at the 2025 British Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton became “complacent” during his “easy” championship-winning years at Mercedes, with his move to Ferrari for F1 2025 bringing a “big shock” to the system.
That is the claim of Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 World Champion, who reckons the seven-time World Champion “needs a helping hand to get his mojo back.”
Did Lewis Hamilton become ‘complacent’ during Mercedes years?
Despite enjoying early success in the sprint format — winning the mini race in China and finishing third in Miami — Hamilton has largely struggled since his blockbuster move from Mercedes to Ferrari.
The 40-year-old has failed to register a podium finish across his first 12 appearances with his new team, marking his worst-ever start to a season.
Hamilton has seemingly struggled to adapt to life at Ferrari with his first half of the season defined by a series of uncomfortable exchanges over team radio with new race engineer Riccardo Adami.
Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc: Ferrari head-to-head scores for F1 2025
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
Ferrari’s season has failed to live up to expectations so far, with the team battling a major issue with the SF-25 car’s ride height since the start of F1 2025.
It is hoped that a new rear-suspension upgrade, which will appear for the first time at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, will go some way to rectifying the problem and allow Ferrari to compete for victories in the second half of F1 2025.
Appearing on the Red Flags podcast, Villeneuve claimed that Hamilton “forgot how hard he had to fight” during his years of success with Mercedes, resulting in the seven-time World Champion being exposed at Ferrari this season.
Asked to choose between Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, the two-time World Champion and current Aston Martin driver, Villeneuve said: “I will [say] Alonso because Hamilton has too many downs.
“Even though he’s got all the championships, it’s not the quantity of championships.
“If you look at every season, there’s always been two, three, four races where he was completely disappearing.
“Then suddenly he woke up and started winning again.
“And too many of those championships came in a car that even [Valtteri] Bottas would have won the championship if Hamilton had not been there.
“That put him in a place where he became complacent and he forgot how hard he had to fight.
“And you can see it now.
“It’s a big shock to him that, actually, no, he has to fight as hard as he did in his first and second season.
“The first championship he had [in 2008]? Amazing. He really fought hard for that.
“But after that, when the car became superior, he had too many easy years.
“He always had seasons where he got a few races where he just disappeared, wasn’t there anymore, and suddenly the light turned on and he was a killer again.
“Alonso is always there.”
Villeneuve went on to claim that a “glimpse” of the old Hamilton appeared in China, where he converted sprint pole into victory 24 hours before being disqualified from the main race for excessive skid-block wear as a result of Ferrari’s ride-height issues.
The Canadian has been left alarmed by Hamilton’s emotional response when things turn against him in F1 2025, insisting drivers “need to be really strong” to handle life at Ferrari.
Asked if Hamilton still has the spark required to succeed at the highest level, he said: “We had a glimpse of it in China.
“He got it on pole when the car shouldn’t have been on pole in the sprint race and then carried that to a win.
“In general, you can see that when things go a little bit wrong, a little bit tough, he goes down.
“He has a real hard time to keep his head above the water. That’s not a good sign, [especially] in a team like Ferrari.
“Ferrari is a tough team and you need to be really strong to survive it.
“He needs a helping hand to get his mojo back.”
More on Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari from PlanetF1.com
Villeneuve claimed that winning a record eighth World Championship with Ferrari would be more valuable to Hamilton than his previous title triumphs.
And he argued that the 40-year-old has only won “maybe three” titles of any value, suggesting that too many of his World Championships came as a product of having a dominant car like Michael Schumacher.
Villeneuve said: “You have F1 and you have Ferrari.
“Once you’ve won the championship, if you can win one with Ferrari you rewrite history.
“It doesn’t matter how many championships you win.
“If you can win one with Ferrari, it will be worth [more than] every other championship he’s had because the perception now is that some of them were just way too easy at Mercedes.
“So how many ‘real’ championships should he have? Maybe three. The same as Schumacher.
“Some of those Ferrari championships there was just no opposition and also the contract within the team was: ‘You win and your team-mate is there to help you.’
“Hamilton does not have that inside Ferrari now, so it’s not the same situation as Schumacher had.”
Read next: Max Verstappen to Mercedes? Who will drive for Red Bull in F1 2026?
