Lewis Hamilton can forget about ‘doing a Michael Schumacher’ at Ferrari, Martin Brundle says

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Lewis Hamilton may not be looking forward to the 2026 season, but he’ll be desperate for 2025 to end. His season took another turn for the worse on Friday as he qualified 18th for the Qatar Sprint.

The hope for Hamilton and his fans is that the new generation of F1 cars suit his driving style better. For the first time, he has also had input into Ferrari’s development.

Ted Kravitz thinks Hamilton isn’t a fan of the 2026 cars based on his pessimistic remarks after the Las Vegas GP. Still, the winter break will offer solace, because it feels like each session is only causing more damage at the moment.

Including the Sprints, Hamilton has been out in Q1 four times this year. By contrast, he’s only qualified in the top three twice.

Lewis Hamilton needed ‘more people around him’ to emulate Michael Schumacher

Hamilton joined a Ferrari team on the verge of winning the world championship. The Scuderia had finished just 14 points behind McLaren in the 2024 constructors’ race.

But while he wasn’t all-in on success in 2025, he surely expected a package that was good enough to win races. Not even Charles Leclerc, who has looked far more comfortable, has been able to fight for top honours.

Hamilton wants to end Ferrari’s title drought, which stretches back to 2007. It’s the team’s longest barren spell since 1979-2000, when Michael Schumacher was their saviour.

Martin Brundle says Hamilton backed himself to replicate Schumacher’s achievement. But unlike the German, he hasn’t had ‘the people around him’ to transform Ferrari.

What Ferrari would do for this dream team right now…

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“It’s been more difficult than he thought it would be, than he hoped it would be,” Brundle told Sky Sports at Lusail. “He wanted to go there and do a Michael Schumacher.

“Michael went with Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne, Jean Todt, Stefano Domenicali was there, and of course, the brilliance of the Ferrari team. It still took a number of years to turn Ferrari around. That’s really the last time they were truly dominant, truly the team to beat.

“I think Lewis needed some more people around him. It would be more difficult now. He was so embedded at Mercedes-Benz. It would have been great if he could take Bono with him, for example, and one or two other people.”

How did Michael Schumacher perform in his first season at Ferrari?

Schumacher didn’t have the car to compete with the Williams duo of Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve back in 1996, but he did manage to score a podium in 50% of the races.

He also picked up three wins, the first of which came on just his seventh start in red. Nearly 30 years on, Hamilton has set the record for most Ferrar appearances without a podium finish.

Marc Priestley can tell that Hamilton’s confidence is completely ‘gone’, having worked with the Englishman at McLaren when he first broke into F1.

It was at this race a year ago that Hamilton told reporters that he wasn’t ‘fast anymore’. One could question whether, deep down, he truly believes he can win another world title.