Lewis Hamilton’s F1 team reportedly predicted to fall into spiral amid key departures

Lewis Hamilton and the Scuderia Ferrari outfit have been predicted by a report to experience a challenging 2026 campaign following the recent departure of key personnel from the team. The Italian outfit has witnessed an exodus of its key personnel as the 2025 season enters its final stretch.

According to a report courtesy of Motorsports Italia, the Scuderia Ferrari outfit has seen both Wolf Zimmermann and Lars Schmidt, two individuals reportedly integral in the development of the team’s 2026 engine, depart for Audi. The report describes the exit of the pair from the engine development department headed by Enrico Gualtieri, a ‘black hole’ for the Maranello-based outfit.

It was detailed that the Ferrari 2026 engine had been projected to match Mercedes’ power unit; however, this departure has subtly set the team backwards in its development path for 2026. The Ferrari team has largely come under criticism in recent times, and the addition of Lewis Hamilton appears to have heightened the criticism surrounding the team.

The 2025 campaign so far has largely unfolded in a challenging manner for Ferrari, with the Maranello-based outfit failing to clinch any race victory so far. The only win the prancing horse has celebrated through the season remains the Sprint Race win, which Lewis Hamilton achieved during the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix.

The Ferrari outfit, led by Frederic Vasseur, will now shift its focus to developing its 2026 engine into the best model that it can, albeit without the expertise of two of its engineers who opted for a move to Audi.

Lewis Hamilton speaks on the pressure at Ferrari

Earlier, following the Dutch Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton had opened up on the pressure at the Scuderia Ferrari outfit. The British driver stressed how huge the amount of pressure on the team is.

Hamilton stressed how he, despite the pressure, feels fine mentally. The 40-year-old also stressed how he feels a lot of positives considering the progress he has made so far.

“There’s obviously a huge amount of pressure on us as a team, more so for me now,” he said. “I haven’t had a good season. Next week, we’ll just try to absorb all the energy from the fans.” “I’m fine, I feel fine mentally, I’ve felt lots of positives,” he said. “I felt I was making progress; I was catching the car ahead. It’s tough to have a result like that, but I’ve been racing for so long, I’ve had God knows how many races, and you can probably count on one hand that sort of incident.”

Lewis Hamilton, during the Zandvoort race, witnessed his outing end in a DNF after a crash during the weather-affected race. Hamilton hit the barrier after making contact with the wet paint patch on lap 23 of the race.

Edited by Tushar Bahl