Potential Lewis Hamilton replacement named as pundit teases mutual separation
Lewis Hamilton's dream Ferrari move has turned into a nightmare
Williams driver Carlos Sainz could make a sensational return to Ferrari as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement for the F1 2026 season.
That is the claim of former Sky F1 pundit and FIA steward Johnny Herbert, who believes Hamilton and Ferrari could reach a mutual agreement to part ways at the end of the F1 2025 campaign if their troubles persist.
Carlos Sainz to replace Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari?
Sainz was forced to make way for Hamilton at the end of last year after the seven-time World Champion made the blockbuster move from Mercedes to Ferrari.
Hamilton’s Ferrari switch has so far failed to meet expectations with the British driver still awaiting his first podium finish in red after 14 appearances.
Sainz has also struggled in his new surroundings, finishing no higher than eighth so far for Williams and trailing team-mate Alex Albon by a massive 38 points.
F1 2025 stats: The struggles of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
Hamilton appeared to cast doubt over his Ferrari future at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix, where he could only manage 12th on the grid as team-mate Charles Leclerc set pole position.
After repeatedly describing himself as “useless” following a challenging qualifying session in Budapest, Hamilton suggested that Ferrari should consider replacing him.
In a separate interview the following day, Hamilton alluded to potential trouble behind the scenes at the Scuderia, adding: “There’s a lot going on in the background that’s not great.”
Ferrari and Hamilton opted against specifying the exact length of his contract upon his move from Mercedes, describing it only as a “multi-year” arrangement.
However, the deal is understood to last until at least the end of the 2026 season, with a report in Italy last week claiming that Hamilton has an option – purely on his side – to extend his contract until the end of 2027 regardless of his performance level.
Herbert, who left his role as an FIA steward ahead of the F1 2025 season, has been left alarmed by Hamilton’s suggestion that all is not well behind the scenes at Ferrari.
And he believes his comments could open the door to a mutual parting of ways at the end of the 2025 season, potentially allowing Sainz to reclaim his old seat alongside Leclerc.
Sainz officially signed a multi-year deal, covering the 2025 and 2026 seasons with options to extend, upon his move to Williams at the end of last season.
However, Williams was forced to address widespread rumours last year claiming that Sainz’s deal contains an escape clause if a front-running team comes calling.
Herbert, who has ruled out the possibility of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen replacing Hamilton, told a gambling platform: “When Hamilton said [things are going on behind the scenes], I’m not sure what that meant.
“One way of reading it is that there has been talk already about changing the driver.
“Is that something that’s already been spoken about?
“Maybe it’s been mentioned if things don’t get better, you need to get yourself in a position where you’ve got the next driver ready for next year.
“Maybe they [Hamilton and Ferrari] are both saying that if it doesn’t work, the time is here, the time has come [to part ways].
“I don’t think it would be Verstappen [chosen to replace Hamilton]. It could be one of the younger drivers, I guess.
“But I saw a little interview with Carlos Sainz and when asked if he would go back to Ferrari, he replied: ‘Yeah, maybe!’
“Carlos was doing an absolutely brilliant job and was really keeping Charles under control.
“He’s still young. He’s still doing a good job, even if he’s struggling with Williams a bit.
“But we know how good he was when he was at Ferrari.”
More on Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz from PlanetF1.com
Herbert’s comments come after Sainz recently revisited the pain of being replaced by Hamilton at Ferrari, having been left under the impression that he was on course to secure a new contract at Maranello for F1 2025 and beyond.
Sainz claimed all four of his F1 career victories with Ferrari in a four-season spell between 2021 and 2024, winning twice last season after being informed that he would be replaced by Hamilton.
Appearing on the High Performance podcast, Sainz admitted that it was “a bit shocking” to learn that he would lose his seat to Hamilton.
He said: “I think it was around end of January or [early] February [in 2024].
“I was in the middle of my training preparation for the 2024 season, I was hopeful that the Ferrari was going to be a competitive car.
“I had done everything in December and January, obviously, to prepare myself for that season.
“Contract negotiations with Ferrari were a bit stalled in a weird way, because we were talking since October to renew my contract.
“They kept postponing the point of signing and the point of coming to an agreement.
“But I never felt suspicious and I never felt like it was not going to happen, because every feedback that I was getting was: ‘We’re going to continue, for sure, this is just going to take only a couple hours to agree to the economics side of things and the two or three things we need to agree on your future contract. But it’s going to be an easy contract and we will do it very quickly.’
“And I was like, ‘Okay, okay.’
“So I just went into the winter with that mentality of: ‘It will get sorted before race one of the ’24 season.’
“And suddenly, in the middle of January, end of January, I receive a phone call and they suddenly tell me the news. I heard from a friend that called me.
“I was completely shocked. I went from believing I was going to be in Ferrari for a while to suddenly Lewis is replacing me and [thinking]: ‘What am I going to do now?’
“It never occurred to me that could happen and it was a bit shocking.”
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