Lewis Hamilton was expected to set the track ablaze in red overalls. Following a blockbuster move to Ferrari over the winter, the seven-time champion was receiving championship shouts with silverware droughts for both him and the Maranello-based outfit predicted to end. Sadly, the reality has been far from that.
Hamilton has struggled, as has Ferrari. The SF-25 is much weaker than the #44 driver would’ve thought. Plus, he’s just not warming up to the car as well as his teammate Charles Leclerc is, with the Monegasque even earning a podium finish — something Hamilton hasn’t come close to.
That said, Hamilton’s struggles can be traced back to the onset of the 2022 regulation changes that have shaped the current generation of F1 cars. Dubbed the ground-effect era of the sport, Hamilton has seldom tasted success since F1 entered this phase, and for that, he needs a reset.
Former F1 team manager Peter Windsor, who is now a journalist, has a solution that could help the 40-year-old find his mojo again. And it’s not to continue practicing driving cars at 200 mph around circuits. It’s to drive a much slower car.
Windsor feels that just to get a feel of corners, and regain his sense of control behind the wheel of his car, Hamilton should try driving road cars on normal roads. It’s something NASCAR great Rob Wilson spoke about in the past, the Briton recalled.
“I think Rob Wilson has proved conclusively that you can improve a lot if you use a road car correctly,” Windsor said in a video on his YouTube channel. “We’re talking, manual transition. Has to be nothing too quick, has to be something that’ll last two or three days and not blow up after that.”
“You have to have somebody good alongside you, like a Rob Wilson,” he added.
Windsor continued by insisting that race engineers relaying telemetry information to Hamilton every race weekend won’t help him at all. Instead, the Ferrari star needs a driver coach. “He’s got to be in a situation where he’s got a guy like Rob Wilson, who knows what he’s doing.”
Lewis can’t see his Ferrari fortunes turning around anytime soon pic.twitter.com/RdAfiXaylp
— Autosport (@autosport) April 22, 2025
He feels that Wilson will tell Hamilton what he is doing wrong, driving-wise. And until the seven-time champion improves on that front, there’s little chance of him rediscovering the form that statistically made him the greatest F1 driver of all time.
As of now, he’s seventh in the Drivers’ standings with 31 points, seven behind Kimi Antonelli, the man who replaced him at Mercedes. Not what Hamilton would’ve envisioned coming into the season.
