Lewis Hamilton plans team shake-up at Ferrari after miserable season

ABU DHABI – Lewis Hamilton said on Dec 4 that he plans a shake-up of his team at Ferrari next year, after enduring a nightmare first season with the Italians.

The 40-year-old seven-time world champion, who has gone a Ferrari record 23 races without a podium finish, said he was surprised at his own resilience after enduring the most miserable run of form and results of his Formula One career.

“It’s been difficult,” he said ahead of this weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. “Confidence goes up and down, it comes with the territory.

“But I still have full belief in my abilities and that’s the most important. Holding onto that is not always the easiest thing to do, but that’s got me to where I am.”

Hamilton added there was “nothing that I can’t face moving forwards” after this season. The Briton vowed to make changes to his set-up for 2026, but declined to offer details of who would be involved.

“It’s not a straightforward process,” he explained. “We are testing next week and then go back to the factory -– and I have to decide what my approach is.

“In terms of personal perfection, I have written down what I felt went wrong every weekend and the decisions I’ve taken. So, there’s a lot of things to do.

“I will analyse those decisions and make markers on how I can make better decisions in the future.”

Hamilton added that the factors he would be taking into account would include “my surroundings, in terms of my personal personnel, team personnel – how do you utilise people? Do people need to move into different positions to work better?”.

“All this needs to be looked at in my personal space so we can optimise our teamwork,” he concluded.

Elsewhere in the paddock, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli thanked Max Verstappen for his support as he revealed that the Red Bull driver and his race engineer had spoken to him after receiving death threats on social media following the Qatar Grand Prix.

The 19-year-old rookie made a mistake on the penultimate lap of last Sunday’s race which allowed series leader Lando Norris of McLaren to pass him and claim fourth place.

It earned Norris two more points in his bid to dethrone four-time champion Verstappen, who he leads by 12 points ahead of this weekend’s race, and prompted Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen’s race engineer, to comment on team radio that Antonelli “had just pulled over and let Norris through”.

This led to Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko adding that he had suspicions about the move, suggesting a conspiracy against Red Bull and Verstappen.

The comments, broadcast widely during the race, sparked a slew of abusive comments, including death threats on Antonelli’s social media.

“It wasn’t easy to get those comments after the race, for something that I would never do, waving past a competitor,” said Antonelli. “I was fighting for P3 at the end of the day. I was pushing hard and pushing so hard, the mistake arrived.

“Every lap, I was getting closer to the point where the tyres gave up and at that moment, I made the mistake, and Lando passed me. Then to receive those comments after the race, it definitely hurt.”

But the young Italian said he has subsequently received support from Red Bull.

“It was nice to see the Red Bull statement (issued on Monday) and then Lambiase came to talk to me as well and I also clarified it with Max. I had a lot of support and it helped me to forget what happened,” he said.

“Max saw what happened and he wasn’t bothered... He even showed me support.

“That was really nice from him and I can’t say what he said because it contains some bad words, but it was just ‘Don’t worry about these kinds of people, because they’re brainless, so just focus on the job’.” AFP