Lewis Hamilton says he is making a “big push” for change at Ferrari because he “refuses” to become the latest star driver to fail to win a world championship with the team.
Hamilton has endured a largely disappointing debut campaign with the Italian team, failing to score a grand prix podium across his first 12 races in red, with the SF-25 failing to live up to pre-season expectations of being a title-challenging car.
However, the seven-time world champion remains adamant that he can make a success of his blockbuster switch from Mercedes, and revealed ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix – live on Sky Sports – that he has been submitting documents and holding meetings with key figures at the team’s Maranello factory over the past two weeks.
Hamilton said on Thursday: “I was at the factory a couple of days in each week. Naturally, you’re going over where we were at the previous race, things we need to change.
“I held a lot of meetings. I’ve called lots of meetings with the heads of the team, so I’ve sat with (chairman) John (Elkann), (chief executive) Benedetto (Vigna), (team principal) Fred (Vasseur). And several meetings I’ve sat with the head of our car development, with Loic (Serra), with also the heads of different departments – talking about the engine for next year, suspension for next year – things that you want, issues that I have with this car.
“I’ve sent documents through the year. After the first few races, I did a full document for the team. Then, during this break, I had another two documents that I sent in. So, then I come in and want to address those.
“Some of it is structural adjustments that we need to make as a team in order to get better in all the areas that we want to improve, and then the other one was really about the current issues that I have with this year’s car. Some things that you do want to take on to next year’s car, and some that you need to work on changing for next year.