Lewis Hamilton teases imminent announcement in cryptic social media post
Lewis Hamilton has struggled for form at Ferrari
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton has teased an announcement early next month with a cryptic post on social media.
It comes after the seven-time World Champion’s latest challenging weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa.
Set the date: Lewis Hamilton teases big August 8 announcement
Hamilton suffered two Q1 eliminations in the space of 24 hours in Belgium, qualifying 18th for the sprint race and 16th for the main event.
The Ferrari driver opted to start from the pit lane on Sunday, salvaging seventh place in a rain-affected race as team-mate Charles Leclerc collected Ferrari’s fifth podium finish of the F1 2025 season.
Hamilton remains without a top-three finish after 13 appearances for his new team, marking his worst-ever start to a campaign.
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Taking to Instagram’s story function, which allows images and video clips to be posted for a maximum 24-hour period, on Monday, Hamilton teased an announcement on August 8.
A short clip showed on open matchbox on a table in a dimly lit room, with a smoking match leaning against the box.
The matchbox was emblazoned with ‘08.08’, indicating that an announcement could arrive on August 8, the first Friday of the F1 2025 summer break.
Hamilton’s story was followed up with a traditional Instagram post following the same theme, with a video showing Hamilton’s hands placing a variety of photographs – depicting architecture and natural sights like volcanoes – on a table.
In the accompanying caption, Hamilton writes: “We’ve struck the match. Now follow the smoke.”
Hamilton offered no further details over the exact nature of his plans with F1 fans left to speculate over what the Ferrari driver has up his sleeve.
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Despite some speculating that the 40-year-old could even announce his retirement from F1, it is thought highly unlikely that Hamilton’s expected announcement will be related to his racing exploits.
Hamilton signed a multi-year contract – understood by PlanetF1.com to last at least until the end of the F1 2026 season – upon the confirmation of his move from Mercedes to Ferrari in early 2024.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at Spa last weekend, Hamilton offered an indication of his commitment to success at Ferrari that he has held a series of key meetings with the team’s senior figures over recent weeks.
Asked if he had visited the Ferrari factory during the three-week break between the British and Belgian grands prix, he said:
“Yes, I was at the factory a couple of days each week.
“We did preparation for naturally going over where we were on the previous race, things that we need to change.
“I hold a lot of meetings, I’ve called lots of meetings with the heads of the team.
“I’ve sat with John [Elkann, president], Benedetto [Vigna, chief executive] and Fred [Vasseur, team principal] in several meetings.
“I’ve sat with the head of our car development, with Loic [Serra], also with the heads of different departments, talking about the engine for next year, talking about front suspension for next year, talking about rear suspension for next year – things that you want, issues that I have with this car.
“I’ve sent documents through the year. After the first few races, I did a full document for the team.
“Then during this break, I had another two documents that I sent in and so then I come in and want to address those.
“Some of it’s structural adjustments that we need to make as a team in order to get better and all the areas that we want to improve.
“The other one was really about the car, the current issues that I have with this car, some things that you do want to take on to the next year’s car and some that you need to work on changing for next year.
“We did development for [next year], tried the 2026 car for the first time and started work on that.
“Thirty engineers come into the room and you sit and debrief with every single one of them, so big, big push.”
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Hamilton went on to insist that he is determined to avoid the same fate as Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, established champions who failed to add to their title tally at Ferrari.
He added: “The reason for it is that I see a huge amount of potential within this team. 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 are firing on all the cylinders that need to be.
“That’s ultimately why the team’s not had the success that I think it deserves.
“So I feel that it’s my job to challenge absolutely every area, to challenge everybody in the team, particularly the guys that are at the top making the decisions.
“If you look at the team over the last 20 years, they’ve had amazing drivers.
“You’ve had Kimi [Raikkonen], you’ve had Fernando, you’ve had Sebastian. All world champions.
“However, they didn’t win a World Champion[ship] with Ferrari. And I refuse for that to be the case with me, so I’m going the extra mile.
“I’ve obviously been very fortunate to have had experiences in two other great teams.
“And whilst things are for sure are 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.
“They’ve been incredibly responsive. We’ve been improving in so many areas, through marketing and everything we’re continuously delivering for sponsors, the way the engineers continue to work.
“There’s lots of work and improvements to be made, but very responsive and I guess ultimately just trying to really, really create allies within the organisation and and get them gee’d up, get them pushing.
“I’m here to win. And I don’t have as much time as this one here [Antonelli], so it’s like: It’s crunch time.
“I truly believe in the potential of this team. I really, really believe that they can win multiple World Championships moving forward.
“They already have an amazing legacy, but during my time that’s my sole goal.”
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