‘Don’t ever write him off’ - Toto Wolff backs Lewis Hamilton

Toto Wolff has backed Lewis Hamilton to turn around his F1 form following a difficult start to life with Ferrari.

The seven-time world champion has failed to finish on the podium in his first 10 races of a season for the first time in his F1 career, having completed a blockbuster switch from Mercedes.

Other than taking a pole position and winning the sprint race in China, Hamilton has yet to find his feet at Ferrari and has been comfortably outperformed by teammate Charles Leclerc.

Despite Hamilton and Ferrari’s disappointing 2025 campaign, Wolff has leapt to his former driver’s defence, insisting it is unwise to write the 40-year-old Briton off.

"You don't unlearn driving that quickly," Wolff told the Bloomberg Hot Pursuit podcast.

"In 2021 he was great, then the regulations changed, and it got a little bit more difficult, but he was still performing on a very high level. And just by changing teams, suddenly you don't lose your skills.

"I think everybody needs to have a period of adaption. Different car, different DNA of how that vehicle drives, a new engineering team that you need to start to work together then be involved with the continuous development on the car so it suits your driving style.

"It's an all-Italian team; he's a British guy parachuted in there - and that takes time. Also, we have seen a little bit of a pattern that Lewis at the beginning of the season, he needs to find that mojo and then the second half of the season has been always very strong.

"So don't ever write Lewis Hamilton off.”

Does Toto Wolff miss Lewis Hamilton?

Hamilton formed a legendary partnership with Wolff at Mercedes as the team claimed an unprecedented eight world titles together, while Hamilton won six of his seven drivers’ championships with the Silver Arrows.

For the first time since 2013 - when Hamilton first joined Mercedes from McLaren - he and Wolff are not working with each other.

So does Wolff miss Hamilton?

"You always have to miss a person like Lewis Hamilton,” Wolff said.

"We are still close friends. We have given our word to each other that we will stay close friends.

"We are fighting hard on track with the gloves off because we need to fight for our respective teams and that's the kind of rule we have. But off track we spend some time with each other, we travel with each other, and I don't want to miss the friend that I've gotten for so many years.

"The longest driver-team relationship, 12 years - you rarely see that in any other sport. And when it comes to developing the car, obviously, he has a lot of experience, he has seen it all and to replace someone like Lewis Hamilton is always going to be difficult."