Lewis Hamilton’s ‘only hope’ identified after atrocious F1 season

Martin Brundle believes Lewis Hamilton’s “only hope now” is that Ferrari ace the 2026 F1 regulation shake-up.

Ferrari’s atrocious 2025 season continued at the Qatar Grand Prix, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton qualifying ninth and 18th for the sprint, 10th and 18th for the grand prix, and only managing to score a measly four points across the weekend.

Aside from their double retirements in the Dutch and Sao Paulo grands prix, it marked Ferrari’s worst points haul during what has been a winless and bitterly disappointing campaign.

For Hamilton in particular it marked a low-moment in a miserable maiden season with Ferrari. According to Brundle, only nailing the regulation reset next season can spare Ferrari and the seven-time world champion’s blushes.

“Ferrari had a miserable weekend which team boss Fred Vasseur has attributed to the very high tyre pressures mentioned earlier,” Brundle wrote in his latest Sky column.

“They lacked rear grip and general handling balance and are now confined to fourth in the Constructors' championship behind McLaren, Mercedes, and Red Bull.

"Charles Leclerc appeared to be fighting his car every corner of every lap to secure eighth place and Lewis Hamilton looked equally challenged and too had many adventures for an anonymous 12th place.

“It's very difficult times for the Scuderia and particularly Lewis, who can only hope now that Ferrari do a great job on the massive 2026 regulation changes if he's going to add to any of the statistic tables in a positive way.

“Antonelli is just two points behind Hamilton in the championship, the man he replaced at Mercedes, and despite nine races in the wilderness it will sum up Lewis's year if the Italian teenager beats him to sixth in the championship.”

What went wrong for Ferrari in Qatar?

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur linked his team’s worst performance of the year to “balloon” like mandated tyre pressures in Qatar.

“As a team we have to try to understand what we did wrong this weekend,” Vasseur explained on Sunday night.

“From my understanding so far it's linked to the tyre pressure, the prescription, that we were a bit like on a balloon all weekend and we struggled to deal with, but it's the same for everybody, it means that we did a worse job than the others.

“I think that this weekend we struggled a lot with the set-up, and [it's] probably also linked to the prescription of the tyre pressure. We struggled from lap one to the last lap of the race. It was probably a bit better today, but marginally. But it's part of the explanation. But the main part of the situation of this weekend is linked to the set-up from lap one. We were in a tough situation.”