"He might start going, ‘I can't be bothered'": Former McLaren man warns Ferrari Lewis Hamilton could lose interest in the project

Former McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya has warned Ferrari that Lewis Hamilton could lose interest in the project if the car is not better in 2026. The F1 legend shocked the world last year when he announced that he would be leaving Mercedes for the Italian team.

This season the driver joined the team amidst a lot of fanfare, and there were expectations that the squad could potentially fight for the title. Last season, Ferrari ended the year second in the championship and scored the most points in the second half of the season. The team had a car capable of battling McLaren and beating them at a lot of tracks.

The 2025 F1 season has not gone to plan in any which way. Ferrari's decision to change 99% of the car has backfired. What's worse is that Lewis Hamilton himself has found it hard to keep up with younger teammate Charles Leclerc and has hence been overshadowed on the track.

At the same time, Ferrari has had its fair share of off-track issues that continue to plague the team. Before the race weekend in Canada, there were rumors of Fred Vasseur's position within the team being in jeopardy. After the race weekend, Lewis Hamilton admitted that the team needed to make a lot of changes before it could start winning.

Juan Pablo Montoya also felt the driver is pushing the team a lot right now, but if in 2026 the car is nowhere, he could lose interest. He told Casino Hawks,

“I think Hamilton is more hungry right now than he's ever been to prove everybody wrong. But if 2026 goes bad, he might start going, ‘I can't be bothered.’ But he's pushing them right now. Whether they are happy with him pushing them, I am not sure! I do think he needs to grill them and for them to be uncomfortable, the engineers, whether they like it or not. The engineers need to understand that Lewis is not trying to be a d**k to them, but trying to make the car better."

He added,

"I think that's really hard. And you need to learn as an engineer and as a driver not to take shit personally. At the end of the day, they're both after the same thing. Lewis is not questioning whether the engineer is really smart or not, but he's questioning whether they're making enough decisions and the right decisions. They need to leave their ego at home and go to work. Ferrari need someone to manage that relationship better.”

Lewis Hamilton showing signs of improvement

Montoya also felt that Lewis Hamilton was showing signs of improvement, as the driver was very close to Charles Leclerc in terms of performance in Canada. If it wasn't for the groundhog damaging his car, the driver was more or less going to be on par with his teammate. The former McLaren driver said,

“For the first time since China, Lewis was looking pretty competitive. He looked good. There were some rumours that they had a new floor or something. That was good. But he is supposed to have damaged it on lap 10 or something when he hit an animal and damaged the car. And despite that, he finished only 20 seconds [before the safety car] behind Leclerc. If the damage cost him, say two or three tenths of a second a lap, it means he was right there."

Lewis Hamilton is currently at 79 points in the championship and is 25 points behind Charles Leclerc.

Edited by pranavsethii