Jolyon Palmer didn’t mince words during an F1.com interview this week, calling Ferrari the biggest disappointment of the 2025 Formula 1 season. The former F1 driver said the hype around Lewis Hamilton joining Ferrari—the sport’s winningest driver teaming up with its most legendary squad—was through the roof when announced last season. But as Palmer said, things “aren’t clicking as they’d hoped.”
“Ferrari have been the most disappointing team so far, having finished 2024 so strongly,” Palmer said. “With the signing of Hamilton, this should have been a glory year for them, and we saw a glimpse of that early on in China, when Lewis was happier with the car and took the Sprint win, and the team were competitive.”
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Miami Grand Prix radio chatter laid bare internal frustrations
Palmer pointed to the season’s last race, the Miami Grand Prix, and how it fully exposed the complete breakdown of Ferrari’s weekend operations. In Miami, all the negative aspects of Ferrari’s performance were made public thanks to the team’s radio chatter, which let everyone hear the frustrations between Hamilton and Charles Leclerc during the race’s final stages. Instead of sounding like a championship squad, Fred Vasseur’s group sounded more like a soap opera than an F1 team.
“Everything seemed to go wrong,” Palmer said, capturing the frustration that rippled through the Scuderia’s garage. “Whilst it might seem like the drivers are at odds with the pit wall a lot, much of it has to do with an innate frustration at the lack of overall performance.”
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Has Ferrari botched their 2025 strategy?
You might think Ferrari has botched their strategy in 2025, but Palmer’s not buying it.
“This wasn’t about pit wall screw-ups,” Palmer said. The real problem? The car just wasn’t fast enough. Miami laid bare Ferrari’s struggle to squeeze performance out of their machine, leaving them trailing leaders like McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes.
Palmer called it a tough weekend for car performance — and that’s putting it mildly.
This isn’t just a one-race blip. Ferrari’s issues hint at deeper troubles that could derail their season and Hamilton’s quest for glory. As it turns out, the Scuderia’s struggles show how tricky it is to make this dream team work. Despite this, Palmer believes Ferrari has the ability to turn it around this season.
“iff the team can find a better window for the car, then I’ve no doubt Ferrari still have the drivers and procedures in place to deliver victories,” Palmer reiterated.
The Tifosi are restless, and the clock’s ticking for Ferrari to turn things around. If they can’t get that car up to speed, 2025 might be remembered as the year the Hamilton-Ferrari fairy tale fizzled out before it even started.
