There is no joy to be had in Lewis Hamilton’s lowest season of all.
The only season in his F1 career without a grand prix win or podium, and just 156 points, his lowest haul ever.
“I've said all I can about this season already, so there's not really much more to add to it,” was his take at the end of the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where he finished eighth.
That honeymoon period with Ferrari was truly over by April when, after P10 in Australia and a plank-related disqualification in the Chinese Grand Prix - sprint win glory quickly dissolving - he finished seventh in Japan and complained of a “deficit between both sides of the garage”.
The woes compounded in the next race in Bahrain and, since then, his debut Ferrari season has stagnated.
Any optimistic mentions of Hamilton and Ferrari collaborating to further causes close to his heart have quietened, Hamilton’s dreams of designing a V12 manual F44 supercar with Ferrari feel far away, gone are the fond memories of Hamilton's first days and weeks at Maranello. The hopes of Hamilton winning or even scoring a grand prix podium this year had long disappeared.
He worked at it, Ferrari worked at it. Numerous engineering missteps led the team to take two steps forward and three back.
Despite telling the media in Abu Dhabi that there wasn’t much more to say, he said much more.
His phone “is going in the fricking bin” - an unprecedented move for the seven-time champion.
He said: “At the moment I'm only looking forward just to the break, just disconnecting, not speaking to anyone, no one’s going to be able to get hold of me this winter. I won't have my phone with me, I'm looking forward to that.”
Not just a reset but a full-on reinstall and defragmentation.
“I’ll just be completely unplugged from the matrix.”
The second thing Hamilton revealed is that he’s tired of “all this”.
A slightly interesting thing to say, given his move to Ferrari was complemented by a full-on, Wicked: For Good-style press tour in the winter. He was on the covers of Time, GQ, and Vogue and then co-chaired the 2025 Met Gala.
“I can't wait to get away from all this every week. Photoshoots and all that kind of stuff, just… That's the thing I look forward to one day, not having to do it all,” he said in Abu Dhabi.
That’s a revisionist attitude towards the love Hamilton has for the things F1 has given him the freedom to do. His debut Ferrari season has left Hamilton completely jaded.
There’s a generation now that might see Hamilton as nothing more than a grouch. Although he’s never been one to enjoy post-session media scrums, he’s been particularly unamenable lately.
At the end of 2024 he acknowledged - but didn’t apologise - for that year being “one of the worst” in terms of his interactions with the media. He said he’d work on bettering it. He didn’t.
Watching Hamilton come towards the mic evokes a dreadful feeling. He stands as far away as possible and mumbles his answers to the point that some of them are indecipherable on playback.
This is how he chooses to present himself to the media and the people who read his quotes, listen to podcasts about them, digest them, buy the products that he endorses.
He has the option to speak in a quieter environment away from moshing journalists, screaming fans, and flashing lights. Neither he nor Ferrari is exercising its agency in that regard.
That is all to say that there is no schadenfreude, no satisfaction, to be gained from Hamilton’s lowest season. Not from our side, not from his side, not from the side of his team-mates, and certainly not from his fans.
Not even rivals, if any exist. Mercedes replacement Kimi Antonelli was the closest driver to Hamilton in the standings, finishing six points behind in seventh place in what will never be described as a tense rivalry. Team-mate Charles Leclerc beat Hamilton by 86 points over the season. The seven-time champion is in no man’s land.
It’s all done now. Hamilton is now choosing to be “unplugged from the matrix”.
Whether that means he’ll return to defeat the machines that created his dystopia is yet to be seen.
