Few in Formula 1 history have even come close to matching what Lewis Hamilton has achieved in the sport, though his twilight years with Ferrari have yet to reap much reward
Toto Wolff has claimed nobody will remember the final years of Lewis Hamilton’s career with Ferrari. The Brit, aged 40, is seeing out his time in Formula 1 with the Italian team with whom he wishes to win an eighth drivers’ title before he retires.
The chances of that happening, however, do not seem very high at the moment amid a difficult first season in red. Hamilton has yet to stand on an F1 podium after a Grand Prix with Ferrari, though he did win a sprint race in Shanghai earlier this year.
Of course, his status as arguably the greatest driver ever to race in the sport is already secure. He is one of only two seven-time champions, along with Michael Schumacher, and boasts 105 Grand Prix victories – 14 more than the German managed.
Much of that success came over the course of 12 seasons as a Mercedes driver. After quitting McLaren to join the Silver Arrows in 2013, he won six more titles to add to the one he managed in 2008, just his second year in F1, all of them with Wolff as his team principal.
And the Austrian insists his long-time ally’s legacy is secure, regardless of how the rest of his career with Ferrari goes. He pointed to Schumacher’s winless three-year stint with Mercedes at the tail-end of his time racing in F1 as an example of how such a barren run does not detract from the success that came before.
“He is going to retire [and] nobody is going to ever know that he was at Ferrari at the end,” Wolff told GPBlog. “Who thinks about the Schumacher and Mercedes time? That is not relevant for Schumacher’s career.”
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Hamilton has found it difficult to adapt to his new surroundings and, even after a positive performance at last Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix, in which he drove from 10th on the grid because of a penalty to finish sixth, the Brit admitted he is “still not 100 percent comfortable in the car”.
But Wolff insists he does not feel sorry for his friend and former colleague. The Austrian added: “No one should ever feel pity for Lewis Hamilton, because he is a monster of a driver. There were moments of not happiness with us, many times. I think all the reasons he had to go to Ferrari are still valid today.
“He needed a change of environment and we needed a change of environment. We were not as competitive as we would have wished [and] Ferrari looked better. Every racing driver wants to race in Ferrari. He likes the colour red anyway. The deal that was on the table was very good.
“Like I said, these reasons are still valid today. It is clear that there are moments of big frustration, but he had those frustrations with us as well. He just needs another good race weekend or two and then we are going to see a very different Lewis Hamilton.'”
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