Lewis Hamilton has sought to clarify comments made after a troubling Las Vegas Grand Prix in which he said he was “not looking forward” to the 2026 season.
Hamilton, who finished 10th on the road (promoted to eighth after McLaren’s disqualifications) having started from the back of the grid, described his weekend and form as downbeat. He said afterward he felt “terrible” and called this his “worst season” — his first in Ferrari — and suggested he was not looking forward to next year.
Asked ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix — the penultimate race of the season — what he had meant, Hamilton said: “I would be surprised if the other drivers were excited about next year at the end of a season because usually you don’t have a lot of energy at the end of the season, looking forward to time with family and stuff. But, look, that’s just in the heat of frustration. Often there’s a lot of frustration at the end of races particularly when they haven’t gone well. I’m excited to see what the team build next year and to continue to build on with them.”
Appearing at the Lusail International Circuit press conference, Hamilton was reluctant to dwell on a difficult first year at Ferrari. When asked how he looked back on 2025 he replied: “I don’t. I just look forwards. There’s not realty much to say, the results have shown. There are some positives to take from it and you just move forwards. Gelled in the team and there’s amazing passion within the team.”
Hamilton also said he had “no regrets” about leaving Mercedes for Ferrari, despite a challenging debut season. On whether he would have still signed knowing how 2025 would unfold, he called it a hypothetical but insisted: “I don’t regret the decision I made joining the team. I know it takes time to build and grow within an organisation and I expected that.”
He added he was not worried about team-mate Charles Leclerc’s superior season. Leclerc holds a 74-point lead over Hamilton with two races remaining, has taken all seven of Ferrari’s podiums this year and leads the qualifying head-to-head 17-5. “I am not concerned about that. I have just been focusing on my side during this period,” Hamilton said. “Charles has done a great job. He has been here for seven years and he has a team around him who he has worked with for many years so it is a well-oiled machine. On my side, it is a new group of people. It is a new environment that I am still getting used to. We are working as hard as we can to get it to work as well as we can and to compare it to someone who has had it for seven years, you don’t just do it like that. It takes a bit of time.”
The Qatar Grand Prix weekend features practice, sprint and main race sessions as the season heads into its final rounds, with teams already turning attention to development for next year.