What future for Hamilton? Hill warns: “The season may not end”

Sunset or rebirth Will 2026 be the year of Lewis Hamilton’s rebirth or that of his definitive decline? All the fans are asking this and obviously above all the Ferrari fans, who 12 months ago had welcomed the seven-time British champion as a sort of Messiah, only to then have to witness a nightmare season for the red team and for Hamilton himself, unable – for the first time in his career – to get on the podium even once. All this while his teammate, Charles Leclerc, still managed to achieve seven top-3 finishes during the year. Two veterans, one title Now with new rules, a new race engineer who will soon be announced and a year of Ferrari experience under his belt, Hamilton has no more excuses. The 1996 world champion, Damon Hill, spoke on the podcast The Undercut, produced by the website The Race, about the situation of the #44 and that of another historic veteran of the grid, Fernando Alonso. According to Hill for both – or at least for one of the two – 2026 will be the last year in F1. “This [per loro] it has to be the last year,” Hill noted, “unless Ferrari suddenly produces an extraordinary car or Adrian Newey waves his magic wand over Aston Martin and Fernando has a clear path to winning the title. In short, in any case one of the two will have to give up, because they can’t both win.” Early stop? The former Williams, Arrows and Jordan standard-bearer then focused his attention in particular on Hamilton, even going so far as to suggest that he stop during the current season if the results were to be the same as in 2025: “If Lewis has another year like last year or the one before, I don’t think he will reach the end of the season – declared Hill – because I simply think he has lost the joy of doing all this. You know, you can’t just stand there. He doesn’t need to sit in the car and bring points to Ferrari when Charles can win or at least get more than him. He doesn’t need to be there.”