4-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel has backed Lewis Hamilton to adapt to life at Ferrari, conceding it’ll take “somewhat little bit of time”.
After months of pre-season hype, Ferrari’s 2025 season hasn’t delivered on observe.
Neither Hamilton nor Charles Leclerc have completed on the rostrum within the opening 4 races of the 2025 season.
Hamilton has trailed Leclerc in three of the opening 4 weekends, solely trying just like the faster of the 2 Ferraris in China.
Even then, Leclerc completed forward of Hamilton regardless of nursing entrance wing injury earlier than their double disqualification.
After ending fifth in Bahrain, Hamilton spoke at size concerning the prolonged adaptation course of and the way completely different it’s driving for Ferrari after being with Mercedes for thus lengthy.
Reflecting on his former rival’s opening 4 races with Ferrari, Vettel defended Hamilton’s gradual adaptation course of.
“I feel it’s clearly a giant step,” Vettel mentioned. “It’s a giant shift in tradition and I feel proper now, clearly, it’s very centered on the racing facet and on the automobile and the way the automobile desires to be pushed and the way it feels and so forth.
“However I feel adaptation shouldn’t be solely driving. I feel it’s additionally plenty of the issues that occur across the driving while you’re driving as effectively.
“So, I don’t know, to present you examples, the steering wheel, for certain, he’s tailored it to the best way he likes it, but it surely’s not the one he had. This stuff simply take time to actually adapt and it takes capability of your mind, which you had type of accessible to you up to now as a result of every little thing was type of computerized. So it naturally takes somewhat little bit of time.”
Hamilton “not essentially the most profitable driver by probability”
Hamilton’s primary weak point continues to be qualifying.
Final weekend in Bahrain was a carbon copy of his ultimate yr in Mercedes, the place he was outqualified by George Russell after which completed proper behind him within the race following a powerful race efficiency.
Vettel believes Hamilton is “working exhausting” to get up to the mark along with his new group and that it’s only a matter of time earlier than outcomes enhance.
“In fact, I do know that he has very excessive ambitions and really excessive expectations,” Vettel added.
“So on the minute, I do know that he’s in all probability not proud of himself, with how aggressive he’s. In order that works, it type of works in your thoughts and he’s clearly not essentially the most profitable driver by probability, however for a lot of causes.
“And he’s working, I imagine, very exhausting to repair all these issues and to get again the complete capability that he wants and requires on his driving to race to a stage that he’s proud of.”
