Ralf Schumacher fears there is a “danger” that Lewis Hamilton will not see out his Ferrari contract following his move from Mercedes for the F1 2025 season.
And he reckons the seven-time World Champion will not hesitate to retire if he feels he is no longer capable of competing at the top.
Will Lewis Hamilton complete his Ferrari contract?
Hamilton made the announcement in February that he will be driving for Ferrari with a multiyear contract, although many believes it is a two year contract for the F1 2025 and F1 2026 seasons, breaking his ties with Mercedes.
The British driver took six out of his record seven concurrent World Championships with the Team and became the first driver to take 100 grand prix wins and pole positions in solely Mercedes cars after switching from McLaren at the start of the 2013 season.
Of those 356 career F1 starts to date starting in 2007, Mercedes has supplied the engines as well.
Analysis: Lewis Hamilton to join Ferrari in F1 2025.
Despite returning to winning ways with victories in Britain and Belgium, F1 2024 proved to be one of the most challenging seasons of Hamilton’s career having been dominated by Mercedes team-mate George Russell in qualifying conditions.
Russell started ahead of his team-mate at 19 of the 24 races across the season, leading Hamilton – who will celebrate his 40th birthday next month – to concede at the penultimate race in Qatar that he is “not fast anymore.”
Hamilton’s shock admission has raised suggestions that Ferrari have made a mistake by electing to replace Carlos Sainz, who will join Williams on a multi-year contract from next season.
Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, opened the door for Sainz to return to Ferrari at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, revealing that both parties have “already talked a couple of times” about a potential reunion in the future.
Asked if there is a risk that Hamilton will not complete his Ferrari contract, Schumacher – the brother of Michael Schumacher, the only other driver in F1 history to win seven World Championships – claimed Hamilton will likely walk away from F1 if he finds that he can no longer cut it at the front.
He told German outlet Sport1: “The danger is there if everything goes negatively.
“I think that when Lewis realises that he is no longer living up to his own standards, he will say so.”
Schumacher’s comments come after Eddie Jordan, the former F1 team owner, claimed that Ferrari chairman John Elkann “must have rocks in his head” to have replaced Sainz with Hamilton.
Jordan went on to urge Ferrari to back out of the deal to sign Hamilton, arguing that the driver’s admission that he is no longer quick enough should have alarm bells ringing at Maranello.
And he claimed Hamilton should retire gracefully from F1, suggesting that a lacklustre stint at Ferrari risks damaging his legacy.
He explained: “If you don’t believe 100 per cent, you’re f**ked.
“And at the moment I heard Lewis [admit that he’s] not fast enough anymore, if I was Ferrari I would say close the book, find the way out. That’s it.
“A little message to you, Lewis: always remember in life, you’ve got your music, you’ve got your fashion, you’ve got all sorts of other things.
You are, in most people’s view, the greatest driver of all time. Please remember what I’m going to say to you.
“Always, always think about the best exit. And this is the time to take the money off the table. Go.
“You are an amazing ambassador. We absolutely adore you.
“But don’t put yourself in a position where we think less of you because you’re marking time out at Ferrari. That’s all I will say.”
After completing the last of his farewell appearances with Mercedes last Friday, Hamilton is expected to take a short break before officially starting his F1 2025 preparations with Ferrari in late January.
Reports in the Italian media last month claimed that Ferrari are set to document Hamilton’s first day with the team, which is likely to involve some on-track running at the Scuderia’s Fiorano test track.
Hamilton’s first taste of Ferrari grand prix machinery is set to be behind the wheel of either the F1-75 of 2022 or 2023’s SF-23, with F1 rules dictating that only cars older than two years can be used for private testing.
AMR speculated earlier this year that Ferrari will be designing the last element of the car known as Project 677 for F1 2025 through adjustments from the previous 2022 year car: Unnamed specific sources have reported a range of refreshes expected in the next few months in the F1 2025 vehicle, including Ferrari switching to a pullrod front suspension like Red Bull and McLaren.
A pullrod front suspension is thought to assist venting towards the car’s intricate underbody, the floor contributing to about half of the total downforce of the car under the current ground-effect rules.
The switch to the pullrod front suspension is believed to have been instigated by Hamilton’s signing, with the characteristic of his driving more similar to new signing Charles Leclerc than Sainz.
Another outsider expectation for Ferrari seems to remain the polarizing pullrod rear suspension despite the leaving of ex technical director Enrico Cardile in the F1 2024 season.
Of the 11 teams, Ferrari and their customer team Haas are the only ones who continue to employ the more complex pullrod rear suspension layout with the rest of the field switching to a pushrod layout.
Some think that this explains why Ferrari think the pullrod rear suspension help the SF-24 to deliver great tyre management with team’s former engineer Cardile joining Aston Martin and telling media including this website at the launch of the 2024 car that he was asked whether there was any fundamental difference between a pullrod or pushrod rear suspension.
New wheelbase of the car and modification of the internal gearbox working would also be seen on the 2025 Ferrari.
Project 677 is now under development, and the former Mercedes engineer Loic Serra has become the new chassis technical director last October and was hired by Ferrari after working under Cardile.
It is believed that Serra enjoys the confidence of Hamilton and the driver had been uncomfortable with the so-called zero-pod design idea which Mercedes embarked on under the direction of Mike Elliott in the 2022/23 period.