Lewis Hamilton told “next year it has to work” with Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari have been told that their partnership “has to work” in 2026.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton is enduring a miserable start to life with Ferrari amid an incredibly challenging first season with the team since making his blockbuster switch from Mercedes.

Hamilton crashed out of a seventh place in a nightmare Dutch Grand Prix for Ferrari to extend his streak of 15 races without a grand prix podium since joining the Italian outfit at the start of the season.

To rub salt into the wounds, Hamilton takes a five-place grid penalty into Ferrari’s home race at the Italian Grand Prix this weekend after he was punished for failing to slow down for yellow flags on his way to the grid at Zandvoort on Sunday.

The 40-year-old Briton has cut a downbeat and dejected figure at times this season, leading to suggestions he could retire from F1.

That is not a view shared by Jacques Villeneuve, however, he has warned that Hamilton and Ferrari won’t have anywhere to hide in 2026 when radical new regulations are introduced.

“No [Hamilton won’t leave Ferrari], not now because 2026 is a new car, new engine, a whole new package and everybody's waiting for that,” the 1997 world champion told Comeon Sports.

“It was cheap for them, really. They’ve got so much value out of getting Lewis into the team that it cost them nothing to do it. He is still the only true global superstar driver out there.

“You don't want to do too many seasons like this because then your value does go down at some point. There's the thing.

“First season there, new regulations next year, and so on and so on. That gives a little bit of leeway but that's it. Next year? Next year it has to work.”

Lewis Hamilton backed to overcome challenge

Hamilton has struggled to adapt to Ferrari’s SF-25 car and has been comprehensively outperformed by teammate Charles Leclerc so far this season.

Despite this, Villeneuve has backed Hamilton to turn things around, citing similar experiences earlier in his career at McLaren.

“The first McLaren year with Alonso? That was character building. The Mercedes years weren’t,” Villeneuve added.

“Now he's a little bit back to square one because he's had a lot of those years at Mercedes but he's shown when he was at McLaren that he's very capable of working around those kinds of pressures.”