Ralf Schumacher sends Lewis Hamilton into retirement

Ralf Schumacher during the Sky F1 Backstage Pit Lane podcast, produced by Sky Germany, didn’t mince words: “Lewis Hamilton can’t handle Ferrari. We talk a lot about Lando Norris but it’s almost worse with him. You can see it, he is really dejected. If at some point you are there and you have no resources left and you are getting slower and slower, then you lose everything. I know this from personal experience–if it were to continue like this, it would stop being fun. Then at some point you wake up in the morning and think ‘Why am I doing this to myself? I’m not having fun anymore, I can’t take it anymore. I’m just hindering the team’.”

“If it continues like this, there is a risk that at some point Lewis will say ‘I don’t want this anymore, I want to live my life, I’m 40 years old and I’m so rich that I don’t want to do this anymore.’ Clearly something is not working for some reason. What Ferrari and Hamilton had in mind was a huge project, but right now it’s a long way from Charles Leclerc. I never thought the gap would be so extreme.”

“In China he showed that when the track and the car are congenial to him, he can be at his best. There is still something to be done” however, Michael’s brother concluded.