Sky Sports F1 presenter Simon Lazenby believes the next 12 months could be make or break for Sir Lewis Hamilton amid uncertainty over his Formula 1 future.
Hamilton’s debut season with Ferrari has turned from a dream to a nightmare, with the seven-time world champion struggling for results
The Brit’s contract with the Scuderia runs until the end of next year, with the option to extend it further, but during the last race in Hungary, he cast doubt over his future.
The 40-year-old is banking on Ferrari capitalising on the major regulation changes that are being introduced in 2026, just as Mercedes did in 2014, leading to his dominance of the sport.
Speaking exclusively to the Metro ahead of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, Lazenby says Ferrari’s performance in 2026 will determine whether Hamilton, the sport’s most successful driver, will choose to remain on the grid:
‘Lando [Norris] is remarkably similar to Lewis actually, in that they tend to air what they’re feeling at the time. They do wear their hearts on their sleeves. Whether they believe that in the moment is one thing, whether they believe that in a week’s time is a different matter.
‘What they do is they express how they’re feeling at the time and then they go away and they work on it and they keep working. They are workaholics. Lewis has not had any days off, he’s just carried on, got straight back on the horse because he’s competitive and they all are. They know they’ve got an opportunity the very next race to change their destiny.
‘With Lewis, he’s just in one of those difficult moments in his career. If you ever thought moving from a difficult Mercedes to a Ferrari team was going to be easy, it wasn’t.
‘He’s up against the darling of Ferrari in Charles Leclerc. He’s been there for a long while now and he’s also a mega quick driver. Lewis said that he’s been writing all these notes and he wants to steer it a little bit towards what he wants in 2026.
‘Lewis and Fernando Alonso are obviously near the end of their careers and they sniff that 2026 is their chance. If they get it, great. If they don’t, are they going to stick around? I don’t know.
‘I think 2026 will either be the last season for Lewis and Fernando or if they see they’ve got a winning car, they might want to sign on for a bit longer.’
Like Hamilton, 45-year-old Alonso is out of contract next year and is hopeful that Aston Martin can build a car capable of finally delivering his much desired third title.
‘Lando Norris vs Oscar Piastri is going down to the wire’
The 2025 title race is between the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Norris, with the Australian leading the Brit by just nine points ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix.
‘It’s gonna be tight all the way to the end,’ Lazenby adds. ‘We saw it when it was Nico [Rosberg] and Lewis back in 2016, this kind of intra-team battle. Max Verstappen is too far behind, but we’ve known that for a while now.
‘It’s like a game of tennis now, like the Wimbledon final, gladiatorial. I think the pressure is going to keep ramping up. Who can cope with the pressure? t’s been cordial so far but at some point there will be flashpoints.
‘There was a lot of talk about Lando being very honest in interviews. People have questioned is that the right thing for him to do? Well, I’d suggest that he’s got on top of everything. He’s gone away and worked at it, and it’s just Lando’s way of processing what’s going on. And I think his honesty is refreshing.
‘Oscar has really come on leaps and bounds between last season and this year. He’s a different driver and I think that it is two high quality drivers going down to the wire. I’d love to see it all the way to Abu Dhabi and it come down to a straight shootout with nothing to choose between the pair of them.
‘And I think that it’s odds on that that will happen because in any given weekend, it can be either of them. We’ll only know come qualifying, come Q3 where we are with them. They’re so evenly matched now on Saturdays and Sundays.
‘There was a question mark last year. It was clear that Lando had the edge on both Saturdays and Sundays, including the race pace. That’s not the case this year. It is a 50/50 call.
‘I’m really excited. I’m not going to pick it right now, it’s just too tight to call and that’s exactly how I like it!’
Simon Lazenby’s new book Pressure, How the people who power Formula One thrive at the limits, is out on September 11.
‘There’s so much of a focus on the drivers and the team principals that you never really get to understand how the whole ecosystem works and how it’s interlinked,’ Lazenby says.
‘From the logistics to the photographers, the promoters, the engineers, performance coaches etc. It’s a group of remarkable individuals and just incredible human beings. A lot of them I’ve met along the way I’ve become friends with and I thought it’d be good to shine light on some of those unsung heroes and heroics.
‘Everyone has a fascinating story about how they arrived in the paddock and I wanted to highlight that it’s possible for people to get in. You don’t have to be a world-class engineer – it helps if you are – but there’s all these other different roles that you can be if you want to be in Formula 1.’
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