Lewis Hamilton’s ‘bad spiral’ reminds ex-F1 team boss of Daniel Ricciardo

Lewis Hamilton’s ongoing struggles remind Marcin Budkowski of Daniel Ricciardo’s decline in performance before his exit from F1.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton has endured a hugely challenging and frustrating first season with Ferrari and has failed to record a grand prix podium in his first 15 races since joining F1’s most famous team.

Hamilton’s nightmare 2025 campaign continued when he crashed out of the Dutch Grand Prix, as well as picking up a five-place grid penalty for Ferrari’s home race at Monza this weekend.

The 40-year-old Briton’s woes have led former Renault/Alpine executive director Budkowski to draw a worrying comparison with the issues Ricciardo faced both at McLaren and AlphaTauri before his unceremonious departure from F1.

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“I think he’s not satisfied with his own performance and respect to Lewis for admitting this and just being open to the press and just saying, ‘I’m not happy with the way I’m driving and I need to do better’,” Budkowski told the F1 Nation podcast.

“It’s difficult to change cars and teams after such a long and successful career. I think he still has the appetite for it, but is he mentally flexible enough? Is his brain elastic enough? I’m sure it’s more like frustration rather than pressure that he puts on himself. He’s just not happy with where he’s at.

“It reminds me a little bit of Daniel Ricciardo, whom I’ve worked with at Renault, and I’ve always had a very good relationship with. He was really quick at Renault, and he has a lot of talent. Seeing his misery at McLaren was painful, and his return to Racing Bulls.

“There’s a point where you overthink everything. We’re talking about having fun or being more natural. There’s a point where you start to overthink every corner entry, every corner exit.

“That car, the McLaren, wasn’t adapted to Daniel’s driving style for some reason. He tried so hard to change his driving style to adapt it to the car after trying to set up the car differently, but it didn’t work.

“He actually lost his mojo, his driving style, and he just couldn’t drive naturally. “When he came back to a car that was different again, the AlphaTauri. He just couldn’t get his driving back because he was overthinking everything.”

Lewis Hamilton ‘at a loss with’ 2025 Ferrari

Hamilton has been comprehensively outperformed by teammate Charles Leclerc, who has racked up a pole position and five podiums in the SF-25.

“I think in Lewis’s case, he is still adapting to that Ferrari,” Budkowski continued.

“He can’t quite get the maximum out of it as Charles is capable of doing on a regular basis. He starts to think, What should I do differently?

“We’re talking about Lewis Hamilton, and he’s been here in F1 for like 20 years, and he’s trying to overthink his driving style, and I think that’s the beginning of that bad spiral.

“But equally, he has to because otherwise it doesn’t exactly perform the way he wants. I think that’s where he’s at. He’s a little bit at a loss with it, and sometimes he manages to get it right and sometimes he doesn’t.”

One problem that won’t be affecting Hamilton, according to Budkowski, is the pressure from the Italian media.

“The pressure is huge from the Italian press and from the Italian society in general. I don’t think Lewis cares about that,” Budkowski added.

“You know, I’ve worked with Lewis a little bit at McLaren many years ago, but I don’t know him for who is now, he’s obviously evolved a lot; I worked with him in his first years in Formula 1.

“But I don’t think he’s at the stage where, you know what, what the Corriera della Serra writes about him is, you know, keeping him awake at night.

“I think it’s just more he wants this to be a success. He wants this to be the culmination of his career.

“It’s more difficult than everybody expected, and I think the frustration is growing on his side and probably on the team side as well.”