By ANDREW DAMPF AP Sports Writer
No wins. Nary even a podium finish. And virtually no hope of a championship.
Lewis Hamilton is so fed up with his results at Ferrari midway through his first season with the team that he’s taking matters into his own hands.
Hamilton revealed Thursday upon arriving at the Belgian Grand Prix that he spent the summer break holding meetings with Ferrari’s leaders to demand improvements, and composed documents detailing areas he believes need to be addressed.
Hamilton alluded to the mostly disappointing results for Ferrari over the last 20 years with world champions like Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel at the wheel.
“I refuse for that to be the case with me,” said Hamilton, who shares the F1 record of seven drivers’ championships with Michael Schumacher. “So I’m going the extra mile … if you take the same path all the time, you get the same results. So I’m just challenging certain things.”
Hamilton said he spent four days over two weeks at Ferrari’s headquarters in Italy during the break.
“I’ve called on lots of meetings with the heads of the team,” Hamilton said at Spa-Francorchamps. “So I’ve sat with John (Elkann, Ferrari’s president), Benedetto (Vigna, CEO) and Fred (Frederic Vasseur, team principal) in several meetings.
“I’ve sat with the head of our car development, with Loic (Serra, technical director), with also the heads of different departments talking about the engine for next year, talking about front suspension for next year, talking about rear suspension for next year.
“After the first few races, I did a full document for the team. And during this break I had another two documents that I sent in. So then I come in and want to address those,” Hamilton added, detailing “structural adjustments that we need to make” and “issues that I have with this car.”
The 40-year-old Hamilton’s best results with Ferrari have been three fourth-place finishes — two of them in the two races before the break. Teammate Charles Leclerc, who is in his seventh season with the team, has fared only slightly better with four podium finishes and a best result of second at his home Monaco GP.
Hamilton noted that Ferrari “is a huge organization and there’s a lot of moving parts and not all of them are firing on all the cylinders that need to be. That’s ultimately why the team’s not had the success that I think it deserves.
“So I feel that it’s my job to challenge absolutely every area, to challenge everybody in the team, particularly the guys that are at the top who are making the decisions.”
Ferrari is second in the constructors’ standings but has less than half as many points as runaway leader McLaren, which has dominated with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
“I’m here to win. And I don’t have as much time as this one here,” Hamilton said, gesturing toward 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli, who replaced him at Mercedes, and who was sitting next to the British driver at an F1 news conference. “So it’s crunch time. I truly believe in the potential of this team.”
___
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing