"Lewis Hamilton desperately needs a new race engineer": Fans react to Ferrari driver almost colliding with Kimi Antonelli during the Austrian GP FP2

F1 fans were left raging after Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton almost collided with Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli during the FP2 session at the 2025 Austrian GP. It was yet another underwhelming Friday practice for the seven-time F1 world champion as his SF25 was riddled with problems in the first hour and failed to showcase any real pace.

The 40-year-old finished P9 and P10 in the FP1 and FP2 sessions, respectively, and was behind his teammate Charles Leclerc, who finished in P5 in FP2 despite missing the FP1 session.

However, the biggest moment of Lewis Hamilton's day came during the FP2 session when he almost collided with Kimi Antonelli in Turn 4. The British driver was twindling slowly on the racing line while the young Italian was on a fast lap.

The Ferrari driver was apologetic for his role and was given a warning by the race stewards after the incident was investigated at the end of the season. In a video uploaded by F1 on social media, the Mercedes rookie did well to avoid the crash with his predecessor.

F1 fans took to social media to give their reactions on the incident on X, with one fan claiming:

"Lewis desperately needs a new race engineer." "Ferrari need to get someone in who understands Hamilton." "It was close! Too close!" said a fan.

Here are some more reactions:

"Did Ricky warn him?" questioned a fan. "Ferrari really need to sort out their guy on Hamiltons Comms. Not the first time this," wrote a fan. "LH's engineer letting him down," said another.

Lewis Hamilton was running the upgraded Ferrari in the first two sessions at the Red Bull Ring on Friday.

Lewis Hamilton reflects on the upgrades in Austria

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton recognized that there was a huge amount of work needed to bring the upgrated floor to Austria but gave a damning verdict on the new part, as he believed it did not change their competitiveness.

Speaking with RacingNews365, the 105-time F1 race winner reflected on the subject and said:

"A huge amount of work went into bringing the floor, but as you can see, it has not necessarily changed our competitiveness. The car doesn't actually feel that bad; it is just a huge chunk off pace-wise, so we need to look into that, and that is about it, really. "We'll just keep pushing and trying to dial the car in more and see what we can get, but it is obviously close in the top 10, a tenth can make a difference, so that's what we'll work on. It was not spectacular, and we had a problem with the gearbox in the morning, which was difficult and frustrating for everyone."

Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari will look to make some overnight changes to the upgraded SF-25 to be more competitive in qualifying and the main race over the weekend.

Edited by Hitesh Nigam