As the 2025 Formula 1 season reaches its seventh round in Italy, near Ferrari’s historic base in Maranello and the Imola circuit, Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, a challenging and almost unthinkable question looms: Will Lewis Hamilton ever taste victory again?
With 105 Grand Prix wins, Hamilton stands as F1’s most successful driver, the only one to surpass the century mark. His first win was nearly 18 years ago, but his most recent is approaching its own anniversary. To casual observers, this gap might seem short, but for elite drivers, it feels like a descent into uncertainty.
This grim prospect holds true unless Hamilton can somehow steer his SF-25 away from the edge and onto the top step of the podium soon. The difficulty lies in the fact that neither the seven-time champion nor his relatively new team, the legendary Ferrari, have shown any clear signs of being able to achieve this breakthrough.
Hamilton himself frequently articulates this struggle:
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.
When asked about his hopes, his reply is telling:
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.
Perhaps the most revealing admission comes from the driver reflecting on his own performance:
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 being adrift is unfamiliar to Hamilton historically, but it’s a reality many racing icons eventually confront. It’s the harsh truth of motorsport: eventually, the winning stops.
It stopped for NASCAR legend Richard Petty, whose 200th victory in 1984 was followed by a 241-race winless streak to end his career. It stopped for A.J. Foyt, who never won another IndyCar race after his 67th in 1981, despite trying for 12 more years. Even Michael Schumacher, often considered the F1 GOAT before Hamilton, ended his comeback with Mercedes on a 58-race drought after winning seven times in his supposed final season in 2006.
Jimmie Johnson, a seven-time NASCAR champion who knows Hamilton, understands this transition. “I won at least a couple of races every year for 16 years, and then my last three seasons I won zero times,” Johnson recalls. “Man, once that momentum shifts and starts working against you, it`s hard to turn it around.”
Johnson adds that identifying the issue in the moment is difficult. With hindsight, he sees how changes within his team structure played a role, requiring a new learning process. “That tests your patience. It tests your fire. That`s where Lewis is right now,” he observes.
This testing of motivation is profound. Johnson remembers feeling angry at suggestions his drive was waning, only to later accept that perhaps the issue wasn`t solely technical. Admission and acceptance followed, recognizing that performance isn`t always just about the car or adapting to a new team.
“The moment I knew that I was done, I remember it like it was yesterday,” says Rick Mears, who surprised the IndyCar world by retiring in 1992, just a year after his fourth Indy 500 win. “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 represents the fortunate few who recognized the signs and retired on their own terms while still perceived as competitive. For many others, the decline is a gradual process, a long road they don`t recognize until they are far along it.
“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. He won 84 races but finished his career with a 243-race drought. “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, for some, the resurgence does happen. Consider Dale Earnhardt, another NASCAR icon. His celebrated 1998 Daytona 500 win was his only victory in a 100-race span. However, after addressing health issues and with his team resolving its own growing pains, he won five more races over the next two seasons, becoming a championship contender again before his death in 2001.
Helio Castroneves offers another recent example of a remarkable comeback. His fourth Indy 500 victory in 2021 came two decades after his first and 12 years after his third, resurrecting a career many thought was over. “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 Castroneves.
“We are talking about Hamilton and Formula 1, right? Well, this is the conversation that I had with Fernando Alonso when he was here [for the Indy 500]: `Hey, old guys, why are you still doing this?`” Castroneves recounts. Alonso, now 43, is still competing in F1 two decades after his first title, despite his last win being 12 years ago. Why continue?
“Because we still believe we can,” Castroneves asserts. He emphasizes the unique satisfaction of winning with an underdog or rebuilding team, proving you still have the skill and helping guide them to success. “That makes the struggle worth it.”
Damon Hill, the 1996 world champion, echoed this sentiment recently. “When I won with Williams, all but one of them, it was amazing. Truly,” he said. “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… 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 this journey will be worth it for Hamilton remains uncertain and might not be clear for some time. For many, the focus is already shifting to 2026 and the new generation of F1 cars, seen as a potential reset. Hamilton himself has expressed anticipation for these changes.
But for now, the struggle persists – the difficulties, the self-doubt. In racing, even a single victory can offer immense relief and build hope for future success, especially looking towards 2026 and beyond. The dream of being the Ferrari savior is a powerful one, but it’s a role that has eluded many champions before Hamilton, including Alonso, who came to Maranello aiming to replicate Schumacher`s success.
The last time a driver hoisted a world championship trophy in red was Kimi Räikkönen in 2007 – the same year a rookie Lewis Hamilton made his F1 debut and promptly won four races.
“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,” says Jimmie Johnson. He offers advice: “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 is not prepared for 2026, the answer to whether Hamilton will win again is likely a simple `No.` That competitive fire may finally be extinguished.
However, if Ferrari *is* ready, it could pave the way for one of the most extraordinary comebacks in motorsport history – a rare instance where winning, having stopped, somehow begins anew. In essence, it would mean Lewis Hamilton achieving what he has always done, perhaps one last time.
