As the 2025 Formula 1 season arrives in Italy for its seventh race, held near Ferrari`s historic base in Maranello, a difficult question looms. At the circuit, Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, which seems almost in the shadow of the iconic Prancing Horse, many are wondering: Will Lewis Hamilton achieve another victory in Formula 1?
Hamilton, F1`s most successful driver with 105 wins – the only one to surpass 100 – is facing this challenge. While the 18th anniversary of his debut victory approaches next month, the anniversary of his most recent win will follow shortly after. For ordinary people, this gap might seem minor, but for elite racing drivers, it feels like a significant drought.
This feeling won`t dissipate unless Hamilton and his new team, Ferrari, manage to turn their performance around and reach the top step of the podium soon. However, neither the seven-time champion nor the storied Italian squad have offered much indication that this is imminent.
Just listen to the man himself, whose frustration has been evident over recent race weekends:
`I`ve been nowhere all weekend.`
`There wasn`t one second [where I felt comfortable].`
`Clearly, the car is capable of being P3. Charles [Leclerc] did a great job today. So, I can`t blame the car.`
When asked if he was hopeful, Hamilton responded, `Praying is more like it.`
`We`ll keep trying, we`re only six races in, but we`re struggling big-time. We`re trying our hardest not to make big setup changes, but no matter what we do, it`s so inconsistent every time we go out.`
Perhaps most revealing was his candid assessment:
`It`s just about my performance. Poor performance. There`s no reasons. I`m just not doing the job. I`m just not doing a good enough job on my side. So, I`ve just got to keep improving … it`s definitely not a good feeling.`
This kind of self-doubt is unfamiliar territory for a driver who dominated the sport for so long. As Hamilton heads to Imola, 291 days have passed since his most recent victory (at Spa in July 2024, inherited after a disqualification; he did cross the line first at Silverstone earlier that month). Before that, he endured a 56-race winless streak. Combined with his current 0-for-16 run, he has only two wins in his last 75 attempts, both with his former team, Mercedes, which currently holds a better position than Ferrari in the constructor standings.
This is a stark contrast for a racer who, from 2007 through 2021, averaged nearly seven wins per year, achieved double-digit wins six times, and secured multiple victories in all but one of those 15 seasons.
This is how even the greatest athletes can find themselves in a spiral, transitioning from effortless confidence to being visibly rattled by self-doubt, feeling directionless, and seeing no clear path forward. These are indeed difficult feelings.
But they are also feelings familiar to many others who have faced auto racing`s harsh reality: the winning eventually stops.
It stopped for NASCAR legend Richard Petty, who ended his career on a 0-for-241 drought after his 200th win in 1984. It stopped for IndyCar icon A.J. Foyt, who failed to win again after his 67th victory in 1981 despite years of trying. Even Michael Schumacher, the pre-Hamilton F1 benchmark, returned from retirement for three seasons with Mercedes, finishing his illustrious career winless in 58 races, with only one podium appearance.
Jimmie Johnson, a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion who knows Hamilton, understands this challenge well. “I won at least a couple of races every year for 16 years, and then my last three seasons I won zero times,” he recalls. “Man, once that momentum shifts and starts working against you, it`s hard to turn it around.”
“It`s tough in the moment to see what the issue is, or how to correct it, how to fix it,” Johnson continues. “With the perspective of time, I can see it now. I had the same crew for most of my career, then had big changes at the end, and that`s hard because now you have to start that learning clock again. That tests your patience. It tests your fire. That`s where Lewis is right now.”
That testing of the “fire” is a profound experience. Johnson remembers initial anger at questions about his motivation, which eventually turned into realizing they weren`t entirely wrong. Admission, followed by acceptance, that perhaps the issue isn`t solely the car or the learning curve with a new team.
“The moment I knew that I was done, I remember it like it was yesterday,” confesses Rick Mears, who surprisingly retired after the 1992 season, just a year after his record-tying fourth Indy 500 win. “My entire career, when I woke up in the morning my first thought was, `This is what we are going to try in practice today.` Then one day I got to the garage and asked the team, `What are we doing today?` I knew right then that the fire had gone out.”
Mears is among the fortunate few who recognized the fading passion and retired on their own terms while still capable of winning. For most, the winless path is a long, difficult journey they only fully understand once they`ve gone too far.
“You feel the same way. You act the same way. You drive the same way. You ask the same question and have the same answers and lean on the same knowledge and experience that you always have, but you don`t get the same results,” explains three-time NASCAR champion Darrell Waltrip, who won 84 races but finished his Hall of Fame career with a 0-for-243 drought. “They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again with the same result, but what do they say when that`s the same thing you did over and over again for 20-plus years and got the best possible result? Why wouldn`t you keep doing it? Because one day, it has to come back around again, right? Well, maybe not.”
However, sometimes it does come back. Consider Dale Earnhardt, often called the NASCAR GOAT. His iconic 1998 Daytona 500 victory was his only win in a 100-race span from early 1996 to spring 1999. But having overcome health issues and with his team improving, he won five times over the next two seasons and was a championship contender in 2001 before his tragic death.
“That`s the hope when you are stuck in a slump, that one day it will click again and maybe you have one more great moment left in you,” says Helio Castroneves, who remarkably resurrected his IndyCar career to win his record-tying fourth Indy 500 in 2021, two decades after his first. “We are talking about Hamilton and Formula 1, right? Well, this is the conversation that I had with Fernando Alonso when he was here [at the Indy 500]: `Hey, old guys, why are you still doing this?`”
This fall marks the 20th anniversary of Alonso`s first world title. His last F1 win was 12 years ago. Yet, at 43, he continues to compete for Aston Martin, a team that, in its current form, has never won a grand prix. Why?
“Because we still believe we can,” Castroneves continues. “And honestly, I can tell you firsthand, when you do it with a team that is smaller or is rebuilding, it`s an even better feeling. Because you have proven that, `Hey, I`m still pretty good at this.` And being the guy who put that team on the podium, the one that`s fought so hard to get there, that makes the struggle worth it.”
“I won many races, some famous and some infamous,” said Damon Hill, the 1996 world champion, earlier this month. “When I won with Williams, it was amazing. Truly. But when I won that one race for Jordan, a team that had to scrap, there is a payoff there that is hard to describe. No one is ever going to call Ferrari a Jordan, but if you can turn a struggling team around, no matter who it is, as a racing driver there is certainly validation there. You helped show them the way.”
Whether the struggle will be worth it for Hamilton remains to be seen. For many, the focus is already on 2026 and the new generation of cars. As the current season progresses and Ferrari`s current form continues, attention is shifting towards the lighter, more aerodynamically active cars set to debut next season, a potential reset button. Hamilton has already hinted at his anticipation for their arrival.
But in the meantime, the grind continues – the bad feelings, the self-doubt. As is often the case in racing, even one win could be a significant relief, with eyes set on much more in 2026 and beyond. The dream of becoming the Ferrari savior is one that has eluded many champions before Hamilton, including Alonso, all hoping to replicate Schumacher`s success of hoisting a world championship trophy in red.
The last driver to achieve that was Kimi Räikkönen in 2007, the same year a young driver named Hamilton made his F1 debut and promptly won four races.
“Whenever Lewis decides to hang it up and he can look back, it`ll be more telling. His gut or his heart will steer him to a conclusion that he probably can`t see right now,” says Jimmie Johnson, adding advice for his friend. “But for now, it takes time to meld with the team. Leclerc, he`s been in these cars for a few years and knows that system. Then there`s this next moment in time that, you know, if his heart stays in it, and he can spend that time there, with that new gen coming up for these guys around the corner, this whole thing`s going to shake up. Hopefully, Ferrari is going to be ready for that.”
If Ferrari isn`t ready for 2026, the answer to our original question becomes simple: No, he will not win again. That fire will be extinguished.
But if Ferrari is indeed prepared for 2026, then it could become one of the most remarkable stories in motorsports history. A rare instance where winning, having stopped, somehow begins again, defying racing`s natural laws.
In other words, Lewis Hamilton doing what he has always done, perhaps one last, incredible time.
Dominic Ashworth