As the 2025 Formula 1 season arrives in Italy for its seventh race, held just a short distance from Ferrari`s legendary base in Maranello – so close the circuit feels truly in the shadow of the Prancing Horse – it`s time to pose a challenging, almost unthinkable question: Will Lewis Hamilton ever win a Formula 1 race again?
As the most successful driver in F1`s 75-year history, Hamilton boasts 105 Grand Prix victories, the only racer to reach triple digits. Next month will mark 18 years since his first win, but the month after that will be the anniversary of his most recent one. To most observers, this doesn`t seem like a significant time gap, but for the elite athletes who control these machines, it feels like a descent into an abyss.
This trajectory can only change if Hamilton can somehow guide his SF-25 away from that edge and claim a victory before that anniversary arrives. The challenge is that neither the seven-time world champion nor his relatively new team, Ferrari – arguably F1`s most celebrated organization – have provided any indication that they are currently capable of achieving this.
Just listen to the man himself. Reporters ask him every race weekend.
Here are some of his comments from the last three race weekends. The seven-time world champion turned 40 in January:
`I`ve been nowhere all weekend.`
`There wasn`t one second [where I felt comfortable].`
`Clearly, the car is capable of being P3. Charles [Leclerc] did a great job today. So, I can`t blame the car.`
Lewis, are you hopeful? `Praying is more like it.`
`We`ll keep trying, we`re only six races in, but we`re struggling big-time. We`re trying our hardest not to make big setup changes, but no matter what we do, it`s so inconsistent every time we go out.`
And perhaps the most revealing comment?
`It`s just about my performance. Poor performance. There`s no reasons. I`m just not doing the job. I`m just not doing a good enough job on my side. So, I`ve just got to keep improving … it`s definitely not a good feeling.`
This feeling of self-doubt is unfamiliar to Hamilton, or at least it used to be.
As Hamilton heads to Imola, 291 days have passed since his last win, which was at Spa in July 2024. He inherited that victory after his then-Mercedes teammate George Russell was disqualified. He did cross the finish line first at Silverstone three weeks earlier.
Before those two results, he had endured a 56-race winless streak, the longest of his career. Adding that to his current 0-for-16 run means he has only two wins in his last 75 attempts, both achieved with his former team, Mercedes, which currently holds a position two places and 47 points ahead of Ferrari in the constructor standings this year.
This is a striking contrast for a racer who, from 2007 through 2021, averaged nearly seven wins per year, achieved double-digit victories six times, and secured multiple wins in all but one of those 15 seasons.
This is how athletes can experience a downward spiral, transforming from someone who effortlessly exuded confidence and made winning appear simple, to a person visibly unsettled by self-doubt. Feeling adrift, taking desperate guesses, looking into the future and seeing only uncertainty – these are undeniably difficult feelings.
But these feelings are also familiar to many others in motorsports. Those who have confronted auto racing`s harsh reality: that eventually, the victories cease.
It happened to Richard Petty, who won his 200th NASCAR Cup Series race on July 4, 1984, and then finished his career with a frustrating 0-for-241 drought. It happened to A.J. Foyt, who won his 67th IndyCar race in 1981 and never won again in his final twelve years of competing. It even happened to Michael Schumacher, the F1 GOAT before Hamilton. Schumacher won seven times in what was expected to be his final season in 2006, only to return four years later and end his legendary career on a 0-for-58 skid with a struggling Mercedes, managing only one podium finish over three seasons.
Jimmie Johnson, a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion who knows Hamilton, reflected on his own experience: “`I won at least a couple of races every year for 16 years, and then my last three seasons I won zero times,` recalls Jimmie Johnson. `Man, once that momentum shifts and starts working against you, it`s hard to turn it around.`”
He continued, reflecting on the challenge of change: “`It`s tough in the moment to see what the issue is, or how to correct it, how to fix it. With the perspective of time, I can see it now. I had the same crew for most of my career, then had big changes at the end, and that`s hard because now you have to start that learning clock again. That tests your patience. It tests your fire. That`s where Lewis is right now.`”
This “testing of the fire” is intensely real, like a sudden splash of cold water. Johnson remembers distinct phases of this test, initially feeling “so pissed off” at anyone who questioned his drive, but eventually realizing they weren`t entirely wrong. This led to an admission, followed by acceptance, that perhaps the issue wasn`t solely the car or the learning curve with a new team.
“`The moment I knew that I was done, I remember it like it was yesterday,` confesses Rick Mears,” who surprised the American open-wheel community by retiring at the end of the 1992 season, just one year after his record-tying fourth Indy 500 victory. “`My entire career, when I woke up in the morning my first thought was, `This is what we are going to try in practice today.` Then one day I got to the garage and asked the team, `What are we doing today?` I knew right then that the fire had gone out.`”
Mears is considered one of the fortunate ones, having recognized that flickering flame and choosing to retire on his own terms while seemingly still in winning form and driving for a competitive team. For most, that path becomes a long, barren road they fail to recognize until they have traveled too far.
“`You feel the same way. You act the same way. You drive the same way. You ask the same question and have the same answers and lean on the same knowledge and experience that you always have, but you don`t get the same results,` explains three-time NASCAR champion Darrell Waltrip.” Waltrip won 84 races, ranking him fifth all time, but finished his Hall of Fame career with an 0-for-243 drought and saw his self-owned team go bankrupt. “`They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again with the same result, but what do they say when that`s the same thing you did over and over again for 20-plus years and got the best possible result? Why wouldn`t you keep doing it? Because one day, it has to come back around again, right? Well, maybe not.`”
Yet, in defense of those who persist, sometimes the winning *does* return. Consider the driver many consider the NASCAR GOAT.
It`s often forgotten now, but Dale Earnhardt`s legendary 1998 Daytona 500 win was his sole victory in a 100-race period from early 1996 through spring 1999. However, after overcoming largely untreated health issues and his team, Richard Childress Racing, resolving their own development challenges, he won five times over the next two seasons. After finishing second in the 2000 championship, he was a title favorite heading into 2001 before his tragic death in that year`s Daytona 500.
In a related video, Lewis Hamilton vowed “not to give up” this season, thanking supporters and expressing his hope for improvement.
“`That`s the hope when you are stuck in a slump, that one day it will click again and maybe you have one more great moment left in you,` says Helio Castroneves,” who remarkably resurrected his IndyCar career after it seemed over to win his record-tying fourth Indy 500 in 2021, two decades after his first. “`We are talking about Hamilton and Formula 1, right? Well, this is the conversation that I had with Fernando Alonso when he was here (the 2017, 2019 and 2020 Indy 500s): `Hey, old guys, why are you still doing this?`”
This fall marks the 20th anniversary of Alonso`s first of two world titles. His last F1 win was 12 years ago. Yet, at the age of 43, he still competes, chasing victory in his Aston Martin – a team that, in its current form, has never won a Grand Prix. And why?
“`Because we still believe we can,` continues Castroneves,” who is attempting to qualify for his 25th consecutive Indy 500 this weekend with Meyer Shank Racing, the underdog team with whom he achieved his stunning 2021 win. “`And honestly, I can tell you firsthand, when you do it with a team that is smaller or is rebuilding, it`s an even better feeling. Because you have proven that, `Hey, I`m still pretty good at this.` And being the guy who put that team on the podium, the one that`s fought so hard to get there, that makes the struggle worth it.`”
“`I won many races, some famous and some infamous,` said Damon Hill, the 1996 world champion and winner of 22 F1 events, at the Miami GP earlier this month. `When I won with Williams, all but one of them, it was amazing. Truly. But when I won that one race for Jordan, a team that had to scrap, there is a payoff there that is hard to describe.`” He added about the validation of helping a team: “`No one is ever going to call Ferrari a Jordan, but if you can turn a struggling team around, no matter who it is, as a racing driver there is certainly validation there. You helped show them the way.`”
Whether the current struggle will ultimately be worthwhile for Hamilton remains uncertain, perhaps not becoming clear until 2026. As the current season wears on and Ferrari appears to fall further behind, attention is increasingly turning to F1`s next-generation car – a lighter, more aerodynamically advanced `reset button` slated for introduction next season. Hamilton has already hinted at his enthusiasm for its arrival.
But for now, the grind continues. The bad feelings, the self-doubt. As with all things in racing, just one win would offer relief from this pain, while keeping an eye on much more in 2026 and beyond. That dream of becoming the Ferrari savior is a goal that has eluded many champions before Hamilton, a long list including Alonso, all of whom came to Maranello hoping to replicate Schumacher`s success and lift a world championship trophy dressed in red.
The last driver to achieve that was Kimi Räikkönen in 2007 – the same year a newcomer named Hamilton made his F1 debut and quickly won four races.
Jimmie Johnson offered some final perspective for his friend: “`Whenever Lewis decides to hang it up and he can look back, it`ll be more telling. His gut or his heart will steer him to a conclusion that he probably can`t see right now.`” He added advice regarding the present challenge and future prospects: “`But for now, it takes time to meld with the team. Leclerc, he`s been in these cars for a few years and knows that system. Then there`s this next moment in time that, you know, if his heart stays in it, and he can spend that time there, with that new gen coming up for these guys around the corner, this whole thing`s going to shake up. Hopefully, Ferrari is going to be ready for that.`”
If Ferrari isn`t ready, the answer to our initial question is simple: No, he will not win again. That fire will be extinguished.
However, if Ferrari *is* indeed prepared for 2026, it could become one of the most extraordinary narratives in motorsports history – a rare instance where winning, against the typical laws of racing, starts again after it had seemingly stopped.
In other words, Lewis Hamilton does what he has always done: wins. Perhaps, one last time.
