Karun Chandhok says Lewis Hamilton ‘underestimated’ the same problem Alain Prost had at Ferrari

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Lewis Hamilton will want to put his first season with Ferrari firmly behind him after it stood as arguably his worst year in Formula 1.

Finishing seventh in his final season with Mercedes in 2024, his lowest finish in F1 to date, the seven-time champion hoped for a fresh start at Ferrari in 2025. But it resulted in him going without a podium for the first time in a calendar year.

The team stopped development for the SF-25 early to focus on the 2026 F1 regulations. Ferrari did bring upgrades in 2025, but they failed to improve what was a difficult car for Hamilton to adapt to.

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Adaptation was, in fact, a major downfall for the 40-year-old, as he struggled to properly integrate with the team and the car. Hamilton disagreed with Ferrari’s 2025 development, wanting more upgrades, but they were shelved in favour of 2026.

Teammate Charles Leclerc outperformed him in 2025 with seven podiums as he could not get comfortable in Maranello. His performances were also called into question, with Tom Coronel even claiming that Hamilton would not have won the title with McLaren because of his age.

Lewis Hamilton ‘underestimated’ the cultural change at Ferrari as Alain Prost did

Joining Ferrari from Mercedes was bound to be a shock for Hamilton. A new car, new team, new environment, new race engineer, and a new language were always going to be difficult to adapt to, especially after being in Brackley for 12 years.

Karun Chandhok reckons Hamilton ‘underestimated’ how big a cultural change moving to Ferrari would be. He pointed out that four-time champion Alain Prost had the same problem when he joined the team from McLaren.

He said on The F1 Show: “I think he perhaps underestimated the cultural change as well. I was talking to Alan Prost about this, and he went from a British team, and Prost was someone who always publicly said he felt most comfortable in British teams, won all of his world championships in British teams.

“And said the cultural change of being at Ferrari, although it was a while ago now, but he says there’s still a lot of people there, the culture is so different, and trying to be successful at Ferrari is different to any other team.

“And I think, we listen, Bernie and I, we sit up at race control, you listen to a lot of the team radio, and it’s not, it doesn’t feel natural.

“There’s a lot of miscommunications, there’s a lot, and Simon and I spent a bit of time with Uncle Bono, didn’t we, in Brazil, and it’s interesting.

“They were saying, they listen back and when Bono was saying, when he listens to Lewis’s radio, he goes: ‘I know what he’s thinking, but I don’t think they know what he’s thinking’.

“Because that relationship that was built at Mercedes was so strong, obviously over time, but I think that’s been an issue, is that he hasn’t yet fully gotten over the cultural shift of what Ferrari is like.”

READ MORE: Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton’s life outside F1 from net worth to family

How did Lewis Hamilton get it so wrong at Ferrari in 2025?

Many believed that Hamilton would deliver Ferrari’s first drivers’ championship since 2007. But instead, he suffered a nightmare year, by his own admission, as he finished just six points ahead of rookie Kimi Antonelli, who replaced him at Mercedes.

Ferrari did not help themselves in 2025, with an underwhelming package and operational errors hampering their drivers. Chandhok questioned Hamilton’s radio communications with Riccardo Adami, with the pair often being out of sync during the season.

Damon Hill thinks Hamilton ‘overdid the workload’ at Ferrari by doing promotional events and working tirelessly behind the scenes to improve the team.

Christian Danner says Hamilton misjudged his ‘immortality’ at Mercedes as grounds to call for changes at Ferrari, which he did several times through private documents.

The likes of Prost, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel found it difficult to change the team’s philosophy with that of English teams that enjoyed success, and now Hamilton has the same problem.