Bottas: Hamilton struggles at Ferrari not unique – we all must adapt

Valtteri Bottas has weighed in on Lewis Hamilton’s rocky start to life at Ferrari, saying the seven-time Formula 1 world champion should have experienced a relatively straightforward adaptation process – and that adjusting to new machinery is simply part of the job.

Hamilton, who joined Ferrari in 2025 after spending over a decade at Mercedes, has yet to register a race win or podium in his first 12 races in red.

Although he claimed a Sprint victory in China, the full-length Grands Prix have proven more challenging. He currently sits sixth in the Drivers’ Championship and has not held back in publicly criticizing the SF-25’s handling and performance traits.

Bottas: “You need to be able to adapt”

Bottas, who spent five seasons alongside Hamilton at Mercedes, has first-hand experience transitioning from a Mercedes-built car to a Ferrari-powered one.

The Finnish driver made the switch to Alfa Romeo in 2022, at the start of F1’s latest major regulation reset, and said that while there is always a learning curve, it isn’t unmanageable.

“For sure, there’s things to learn, things to get used to,” Bottas said on the Red Flags podcast.

“And especially if you are with a team-mate that has got used to all that, he will have the upper hand initially, but racing drivers always need to be adaptive.

“You need to be able to adapt to a new car. Pretty much every year there’s a new car anyway – power units will change and so on.

“So it’s nothing unusual in F1 that you’re always adapting, always learning because this sport just keeps developing.

“But I know what he’s probably been going through and for me, personally, it was quite straightforward.

“But we must remember that at that time when I joined Alfa Romeo, there was the big regulation change so there were many new things anyway already.”

Ferrari vs. Mercedes: Differences, But No Mysteries

Bottas also broke down some of the technical differences between the Mercedes and Ferrari powertrains and systems – areas Hamilton is still learning to navigate.

“The driveability is a bit different. How the power comes, especially at the lower revs. But which one is better? It’s difficult to say,” he said.

“The settings, the power harvesting, power deployment, you’ve got different strategies. They call them differently, so you need to learn how to use that.

“Even the harvesting, the braking can be a bit different because of that. [The sound] can be different, but that doesn’t really make a big difference. That’s it really. It’s not rocket science.”

Another area where differences exist is in braking systems. Mercedes traditionally uses Carbon Industries (CI) brakes, while Ferrari and its customer teams – including Bottas’ former squad Sauber –use Brembo components. Still, Bottas said this made little difference to him as a driver.

“For me, it didn’t make a difference,” he explained. “Obviously, Mercedes uses CI. Sauber used Brembo, which is what Ferrari used.

“The only small difference for me was how the brakes warm up. Another brand warms up quicker, but for me the behaviour was same same.”

• Read also: Coulthard admits Hamilton’s struggles ‘uncomfortable to watch

While Hamilton continues to search for comfort and competitiveness at Ferrari, Bottas made it clear that no matter how experienced a driver may be, adapting to a new car – or even annual changes within the same team – is an unavoidable part of life in Formula 1.

And though the pressure may be greater when driving for a team like Ferrari, Bottas suggests that Hamilton’s learning curve, though real, is just part of the territory.

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