Lewis Hamilton dossiers draw ‘useless’ Sebastian Vettel comparison
Lewis Hamilton has been told not to waste his time preparing documents for Ferrari.
Former Ferrari chief Maurizio Arrivabene has told Lewis Hamilton that the documents he has prepared to help the team are effectively “useless”.
Earlier this summer, seven-time world champion Hamilton revealed he was preparing documents as he vowed to “go the extra mile” to ensure Ferrari makes the improvements needed in order to fight for world championships.
Hamilton endured a nightmare debut season with Ferrari, who suffered a winless 2025 campaign and slipped from second to fourth in the constructors’ championship.
But Hamilton’s approach has been criticised by ex-Ferrari team principal Arrivabene, who drew a comparison to Sebastian Vettel’s time at the Italian outfit.
“Sebastian Vettel also sent such dossiers. He wrote, spoke and shared everything,” Arrivabene is quoted as telling Sky Italy.
Asked how valuable the documents Vettel sent were, Arrivabene replied: “Almost useless.
“I don’t want to say anything bad about Sebastian, but everyone should mind their own business.
“When a driver starts playing engineer, that’s it. Then it’s really over.
“Drivers spend two or three days in the simulator and get a general impression, but the devil is in the details.
“When the car is on the track, the driver must provide relevant feedback so that the engineers can make targeted improvements – especially when there is potential.”
Ferrari failed to win either world championship in 2017 or 2018 amid a series of driver and management errors under Arrivabene’s command.
Arrivabene was subsequently replaced as Ferrari team principal by Mattia Binotto for 2019.
Hamilton has ‘so many notes’ for Ferrari
Hamilton, who ended a miserable campaign with three consecutive Q1 exits, revealed after the penultimate round of the season in Qatar that he had “so many notes” for his Ferrari team.
"It definitely has been the most challenging year both in and out of the car. I've got so many notes in terms of things we need to improve on," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
"Time will tell whether or not we act on those things and we keep hold of the things that are good and change the things that are not - and there's plenty of those.
"There's literally no reason why we couldn't fix those if we just put those into action. I'm hopeful for us making progress.”
2025 marked Hamilton’s first F1 season in which he failed to achieve a grand prix podium finish.
In this article
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for Crash.net around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.