Great debate: Will Hamilton retire or battle on with Ferrari?

Lewis Hamilton has not had the start to life at Ferrari that he would have hoped. 

The seven-time world champion joined the Scuderia for the 2025 Formula 1 campaign after 12 seasons with Mercedes, yet six rounds into the year and he is already behind. 

Hamilton is seventh in the standings, 90 points off championship leader Oscar Piastri but more crucially, 12 points behind Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc who is fifth.

There have been highlights for the Briton, such as his sprint win in Shanghai or sprint podium in Miami, but on the whole it has been largely underwhelming.

It has led to figures like Ralf Schumacher claiming the 40-year-old may soon decide to retire from F1 should the current situation continue.

But, does Schumacher have a point? Our writers have their say.

Surrender has never been in Lewis’s lexicon – Stuart Codling

I found the notion of Lewis Hamilton retiring in the summer laughable even before I heard that this sage prediction came from F1’s increasingly tedious paddock rent-a-quote, Ralf Schumacher.

Lewis is a curiously polarising figure in the world of F1 fandom but even his most ardent detractors – well, those not fishing for headlines anyway – must admit that throwing in the towel isn’t part of his nature.

There are those who cite Nigel Mansell’s abortive 1995 comeback with McLaren, which famously didn’t end well, as precedent for a driver pulling the eject switch before season’s end. But the comparison doesn’t stack up.

Leclerc is quicker than Hamilton, but the world champion is not one to be defeated

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Longstanding team insiders recall Mansell arriving at Woking as an uninterested and unmotivated shadow of his former super-competitive persona.

Hamilton remains as competitive and motivated as ever. Has age slowed him? We can’t know for sure. He remains baffled and frustrated by his deficit to Charles Leclerc, but not yet defeated by it.

We know his problems with the Ferrari power unit’s engine braking characteristics can only be resolved by him adapting to them, rather than the other way around.

Hamilton is clearly experiencing a crisis of faith and self-belief, as befits a driver of his stature having to come to terms with the fellow in the other garage being faster.

But he’s faced considerably worse than this in his life and not gone skulking off – even if he wasn’t as wealthy then as he is now.

Don’t worry, be happy – Mark Mann-Bryans

If there is one thing a seven-time world champion deserves, it’s to leave F1 on his own terms. Who are we, who is anyone (including Ralf Schumacher), to tell the greatest driver in the history of the sport – statistically speaking – when he should walk away and retire?

Previously, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur spoke of getting the best out of Hamilton in 2025, 2026 and 2027 – there is no saying at this stage, however, if the Lewis experiment could get cut short, especially if he does not get to grips with next year’s car, given the impending regulation reset.

Even if that were to be the case, Hamilton should be in charge of his own destiny. While claiming seven world titles, he also enjoyed himself with projects away from racing.

He’s interested in fashion, music, charity work and is a producer on the forthcoming F1 film starring Brad Pitt. If he bizarrely followed Schumacher’s suggestion and called it quits mid-season, I do not think he’d be short of new projects to sink his teeth into.

Despite a largely disappointing season so far, Hamilton still proved his worth by winning the Shanghai sprint race

Photo by: Greg Baker/ AFP / Getty Images

Whenever the day comes when Hamilton steps away from F1 for good, he should be making the call without others having their say, Vasseur aside.

In the meantime, all that will be playing on his mind is adapting to his new surroundings, his new equipment, and going out to prove people wrong. He has been doing that for years; he has already done it once this year in the sprint race at Shanghai. Maybe he has a few more of those moments to come.

He’ll stay but perhaps should have gone already – Jake Boxall-Legge

There aren’t enough adjectives to describe the seismic impact Hamilton has had on F1. He’s been such a terrific ambassador for what is erroneously referred to as ‘the sport’, particularly with his own commission and his drive to push Mercedes into more diverse hiring practices – both with the intent of helping minority groups feel more represented in a motorsport environment.

Of course, someone’s going to complain that all he’s done is perpetuate ‘a wokeist agenda’, because apparently being nice and helping people without a voice these days should be frowned upon…

I don’t think Hamilton will retire any time soon; I think he’ll keep going until 2026, and then he’ll bring his career to a nice convenient end after 20 years battling at the zenith of F1. Then he’ll go on to do… well, the world’s his oyster.

But here’s the rub: I’m going to argue he shouldn’t even still be in F1. He should have called it quits after 2021. That was his ‘always leave them wanting more’ moment, the point at which he was denied an eighth title after Max Verstappen made use of the situation presented after the late-race safety car at the Abu Dhabi finale.

Should Hamilton have retired after his dramatic title fight with Verstappen?

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Hindsight is always perfect, however; there were no clues that Hamilton and Mercedes were going to struggle quite so much with the current ruleset until the 2022 season opened for business.

The feelgood story of his British GP win last year rather demonstrated how much of an arduous road it had been for him and the team. If 2026 doesn’t work out, his illustrious career is in danger of petering out in anti-climactic fashion.

It’s too soon to quit and Lewis knows it – Oleg Karpov

Nothing that’s happening now is particularly surprising. The modern world moves too fast for patience and, when the most successful driver of all time joins the most successful team in F1 history, it’s going to cause a stir – from the initial euphoria to the inevitable wave of scepticism once the struggles begin.

And with Hamilton being who he is – someone unafraid to share contrasting views depending on the result or even his mood – it only adds to the drama.

But really, none of this was unforeseeable. Was it obvious that switching teams after more than a decade at Mercedes would be a challenge? Of course. Was there reason to expect that he might not match Charles Leclerc, especially over one lap in qualifying? Absolutely.

Emotions aside, this is just the beginning of Hamilton’s Ferrari chapter. And even if he dreamed of a fairytale start, he likely knew it wouldn’t come easy. I don’t think the idea of retirement is even on his mind – and it won’t be, even if 2025 turns into a season-long struggle.

What he wants is an eighth world title with Ferrari. And there are only three ways this plays out. One: he achieves that goal. Two: he realises Ferrari is still too far away from giving him a car capable of fighting for a championship – and 2026 will be critical in that regard. Or three: Ferrari does deliver such a car, but he loses the internal battle to Leclerc and realises he’s past his best. None of these scenarios are short-term.

This article is one of many in the new monthly issue of Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the June 2025 issue and subscribe today.

Hamilton’s interests outside F1 include music, fashion, film production – and now a trading card and memorabilia partnership

Photo by: imagecomms