Nico Rosberg believes Lewis Hamilton will face “a painful adventure” with Ferrari if he does not regain his Formula 1 qualifying form.
During the 2024 F1 season, George Russell out-qualified his Mercedes teammate, Hamilton, an impressive 24 times in both sprint qualifying and regular qualifying sessions.
The seven-time World Champion had four Q1 exits and two Q2 exits over the course of the year, with an average qualifying position of 8.54 – the seventh best on the grid.
Considering his form on Saturday, it is quite remarkable that Hamilton only finished 22 points off Russell.
Whilst Rosberg felt that Hamilton had lost his qualifying mojo, the 2016 World Champion stated that he was still “at his very, very best” in terms of race pace.
After two seasons without a race win, Hamilton was victorious twice in 2024 at the British Grand Prix and Belgium Grand Prix.
However, Rosberg claims that the 39-year-old racing driver will be in trouble next year if he can not improve on a Saturday with the Scuderia in 2024.
“He is at a place where he’s saying to himself, ‘I’m not fast anymore’, and that’s really singled out to qualifying,” Rosberg said on the Sky F1 podcast.
“The problem with our sport is that if you don’t qualify high up, you really struggle, even though he still seems to be at his very, very best in race pace – we’ve seen over and over again his racing pace is just still insanely strong.
“But when you qualify poorly all the time almost, and he says himself he’s just not quick enough in qualifying, then that’s something that was weighing on the shoulders so much during the end of the year.
“When you get beaten [by] your team-mate who’s younger, and let’s remember, the team-mate is not a World Champion, the team-mate is just a four-time [three-time] race winner.
“And when you get beaten all the time, and in the case of Lewis, who’s statistically the GOAT [greatest of all time], then that’s really tough, especially going forward.”
Rosberg hopes Hamilton returns to ‘the brilliant driver we know’
Hamilton will be up against Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari next year having replaced Carlos Sainz, who now heads to Williams.
Leclerc had three wins last season and only narrowly missed out on clinching the Constructors’ Championship for Ferrari against McLaren – as well as second place in the Drivers’ Standings behind Lando Norris.
Rosberg expressed his concerns for Hamilton going up against the Moneqasque, who will have the advantage over the British racing driver having been with the team since 2019.
He added: “Now, he has two years at Ferrari, and he will 100% be very, very worried.
“’What if this form of mine continues, like, was it just the car at Mercedes, or was it something else? And what if this form of mine continues to Ferrari?’
“If it does, it would really be quite a painful adventure, I would say, because that’s not what Ferrari hired him for.
“Ferrari hired him to be on a level with Leclerc and fight for World Championships.
“So I think he will be very worried about that, and we can only hope that he finds back to his good old self with a reset at Ferrari and is, once again, the brilliant driver we know.”
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