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A despondent Lewis Hamilton has said he could not wait to get away from Abu Dhabi after enduring what has been the worst season of his career. He finished in his lowest ever championship position of sixth place and is looking forward to the winter break and disconnecting from the sport as he attempts to reset and regroup.
In the final race of the season in he qualified in 16th place and finished in eighth, while the young British driver Lando Norris claimed his first world championship, the first Briton since Hamilton last did so in 2020.
“I can’t wait to get away from all this,” Hamilton said afterwards as he faced the media. “Every week, photo shoots and all that kind of stuff. That’s the thing I look forward to one day, not having to do it all.”
The seven-time champion has cut a somewhat jaded and disconsolate figure over the last rounds of his most trying season and admitted he just wanted to step back, which will doubtless prompt further debate over how long the 40-year-old will continue in the sport.
“At the moment I’m only looking forward to the break,” he said at the Yas Marina circuit. “Just to disconnecting, not speaking to anyone. No one will be able to get in touch with me this winter. I won’t have my phone with me and I’m looking forward to that. Completely unplug from the matrix.”
Hamilton has said, however, that he completely supports his Ferrari team’s decision to abandon development of this year’s car at an early stage in the season to put all their efforts into the new model for the new regulations of 2026.
In his first season for the Scuderia which had opened with so much optimism, the car was not up to scratch. Well off the pace of McLaren and behind the Red Bull, Ferrari were at best in a fight for third best with Mercedes but frequently found wanting even there.
After qualifying at Abu Dhabi, his third consecutive exit in Q1, Hamilton was at the end of his tether. “I don’t have the words to describe the feeling that I have inside,” he said. “An unbearable amount of anger and rage. There is not really much I can say about it.”
At the penultimate round of the season in Qatar the team principal Fred Vasseur admitted the team had stopped developing the car in April, effectively ending any real chances of improvement for the rest of the year. Hamilton has failed to score a podium for the first time in his career this season but said he backed the team’s decision.
“I didn’t know at the end of the year we’d be where we are, no. We anticipated it but it felt worse, naturally. But I was a part of it, I was one pushing for it,” he said. “You can’t fall behind the others in terms of that development for the new car because it’s a steep learning curve for all of us. So I supported it 100%. I still do.”
It has been a particularly difficult year for Hamilton, with the sole exception of a win at the sprint race in China, which proved to be a false dawn, he has been comprehensively out-qualified in 19 of the 24 GPs and outraced by his teammate Charles Leclerc who has been with the team for seven years.
Hamilton had the worst qualifying performance of his career in Las Vegas, in 20th place, his lowest ever position on pace, he has finished outside the points twice and has not finished higher than fourth all season.
As the year ground on and his struggles with the car continued he was increasingly critical, including describing his first season as a “nightmare”. A statement which provoked a rebuke from the Ferrari president John Elkann, who stated he should: “Focus on driving and talk less”.
It is believed Hamilton was somewhat taken aback at the team’s organisation and methodologies when he began working with them and that he felt the decision making process was ungainly. He has repeatedly stressed he is convinced they have the talent in personnel to succeed but it has become clear he thinks they must be utilised better.
At the Belgium GP he revealed he had held a series of meetings with the key players at Ferrari: Vasseur, Elkann and the chief executive, Benedetto Vigna. He had compiled two documents detailing suggestions for the progress he believes is needed to turn around Ferrari’s fortunes.
He said in Abu Dhabi it was a process that would continue over the winter. “We just need to analyse where we’ve been, what’s been good, areas that we can improve on.” he said. “I know where they all are. It’s sitting down with the team at the end of the year.
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