New theory for Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari struggles emerges

Karun Chandhok believes Lewis Hamilton’s struggles at Ferrari have been influenced by their braking system.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton has used Carbon Industrie brake materials throughout his 18-year F1 career at McLaren and Mercedes but has had to adjust to Brembo brakes since making the blockbuster switch to Ferrari.

Hamilton has found adapting to Ferrari’s 2025 car extremely challenging and has rarely looked comfortable in the SF-25 during what has been a hugely disappointing debut season in red.

The 40-year-old Briton has been outclassed by teammate Charles Leclerc and is at risk of losing his incredible record of finishing in the top three of a race in every F1 season he has competed, having gone 16 out of 24 rounds without achieving a grand prix podium for Ferrari.

Speaking during Sky Sports F1’s coverage ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, former F1 driver Chandhok revealed that he has heard Ferrari have made a potential breakthrough with one of Hamilton’s biggest problems.

“One of the engineers I used to work with in GP2, Mauro, who is now at Brembo working at Ferrari, they were talking about the work they’ve done with Lewis because Lewis had gone through his whole F1 career at Mercedes and McLaren using the Carbon Industries brakes,” Chandhok said.

“As we know, since karting, braking has been a strength for him. It’s something that he really puts a lot of emphasis on for his performance. Switching that material to Brembo has given him a different feel. It’s less grabby. You get less bite.

“Mauro was saying they’ve spent a lot of time trying to give Lewis a feeling that he’s more familiar with and more confident with, and they feel like they’ve made some good steps. And I think we’ve seen [this].

“What I was pleased with was obviously Monza, braking performance is so critical, and he was there.

“This is my theory. As soon as the entry phase of the corner, if the driver has a better feeling, a more familiar and a more confident feeling, that sets them up for when they have to then turn the wheel and load the car into the apex.”

Fellow Sky Sports F1 pundit Bernie Collins questioned why Ferrari have not switched brake material supplier on Hamilton’s car.

“It’s interesting hearing Karun’s comments there on the braking for Ferrari, if that was the issue, why not just switch to CI much earlier in the year?” Collins asked.

Sky Sports F1 pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz explained: “It’s not about the money but I think they’re an official supplier and they would like to make it work.

“I mean, they can’t secretly swap out different brake material.”

To which, Collins replied: “Yeah I know but when I worked at McLaren, we ran both for example.”

Chandhok then went on to add: “Actually in the past, they used to split between drivers. But I believe it’s because Ferrari historically have been the ‘works’ Brembo team for years and years.”

Is Lewis Hamilton making progress?

Hamilton has been in a more upbeat mood at the Dutch and Italian grands prix following F1’s return from the summer break.

Despite crashing out of the race in Zandvoort and recovering to sixth in his first Italian Grand Prix as a Ferrari driver after being hit with a grid penalty, Hamilton felt he had made progress with his car over the two weekends.

While he dismissed suggestions he could win a race before the end of the season as “far-fetched”, Hamilton insisted he feels “optimistic” he can end his podium duck in the final eight races of the campaign.

"A win is a bit far-fetched considering I've been sixth, seventh and eighth for most of the season," Hamilton said in Baku.

“I would love to get a podium for the team at some stage, Charles has had five of them.

"I feel optimistic coming into the weekend. I feel like I've found a couple of things and now I need to work on extracting them. So I really hope that this weekend can be the start of that."