Lewis Hamilton must prove he’s capable of crucial Michael Schumacher attribute to succeed at Ferrari

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When Michael Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996, things were in dire straits for one of F1’s most coveted and prestigious teams.

Between the 1990 and 1996 seasons, they had won only two races with Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi, while their last Drivers’ Championship came from Jody Scheckter in 1979.

Schumacher’s win in the wet at Barcelona kickstarted a long-awaited return to the top for the red cars, before mounting a credible title challenge in the 1998 and 1999 seasons.

His subsequent five championships are a dedication to his hard work behind the scenes alongside the super team of Ross Brawn, Jean Todt, and Rory Byrne.

Jean Todt outlines what Michael Schumacher brought to Ferrari

Joining Ferrari off the back of two years of title success at Benetton might have been seen as a poisoned chalice to some. Why leave a team when you are comfortably beating everyone else?

For Schumacher, it was the next challenge in his extraordinary career, as he explained in an interview from 1996: “This kind of motivation was what I was looking for. I was not looking for an easy job where I sit in the car and I’ll win every race, or where people at least expect me to win every race – this is not the challenge I’m looking for.”

Schumacher galvanised Ferrari in a way that drivers hadn’t done, which is what set them on their trajectory at the end of the 1990s, according to Todt.

“Discipline. Because we knew that he was a great driver, very efficient, very organised, very pragmatic. And we knew that he would not tolerate being in a team with amateurs. So we had to demonstrate immediately that Ferrari was a very professional, organised and structured team,” said Todt when speaking on the Beyond the Grid podcast.

“Michael was always very curious, very available to participate to the development of the team, very, very engaged. And he was the first interested. He came to Ferrari because he wanted to be world champion with Ferrari. So we had to give a very strong contribution. But I mean, quickly, he understood that we were on the right track.”

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Lewis Hamilton must prove he can adapt to Ferrari like Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel

While there are parallels to what Schumacher inherited compared to Lewis Hamilton’s 2025 season, Ferrari is now way more competitive and has even more resources to deploy to bring itself back to the top.

Hamilton’s comments over the Hungarian GP weekend were eye-opening, not least as they didn’t appear to represent those of a seven-time world champion with a stat sheet that some of the legends of F1 could dream of having.

Of course, it’s a cultural shift for Hamilton since he’s now no longer part of the Mercedes-Benz group that helped bring him to Formula 1 in the first place. But drivers have had to answer those questions in the past, most recently Sebastian Vettel, who joined Ferrari following years of success at Red Bull.

Hamilton worked extra hard in the off-season before joining Ferrari; such was his motivation for joining the project. Now he faces the difficult part, bringing the team together amid their struggles and proving to everyone that his aura isn’t just performative.