Former Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has fired a pointed judgment at Lewis Hamilton, dismissing the seven-time world champion’s detailed notes on improving the Scuderia as, well, essentially “useless.”
Earlier this month, Hamilton vowed to “go the extra mile” to help Ferrari bounce back, revealing he had been compiling extensive list of suggestions aimed at addressing the team’s issues and weaknesses after a disastrous 2025 season.
The Italian outfit not only finished winless but also tumbled from second to fourth in the Constructors’ Championship – a nightmare debut for the Brit behind the wheel of the Prancing Horse.
“I’ve got so many notes in terms of things we need to improve on,” Hamilton admitted.
“Time will tell whether or not we act on those things and we keep hold of the things that are good and change the things that are not – and there’s plenty of those.
“There’s literally no reason why we couldn’t fix those if we just put those into action. I’m hopeful for us making progress.”
Arrivabene, who ran Ferrari from 2014 to 2019 with limited success – never managing to deliver the world title back to Maranello – was less than impressed with Hamilton’s initiative, drawing a parallel with a fix-it list once delivered by Sebastian Vettel back in the day.
“Sebastian Vettel also sent such dossiers. He wrote, spoke and shared everything,” he told Sky Italia.
Asked how useful Vettel’s notes had been, Arrivabene didn’t hold back.
“Almost useless,” he said. “I don’t want to say anything bad about Sebastian, but everyone should mind their own business.
“When a driver starts playing engineer, that’s it. Then it’s really over. Drivers spend two or three days in the simulator and get a general impression, but the devil is in the details.
“When the car is on the track, the driver must provide relevant feedback so that the engineers can make targeted improvements – especially when there is potential.”
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During Arrivabene’s tenure, Ferrari struggled to convert talent into titles. Despite having a strong driver lineup, the team failed to win either the Drivers’ or Constructors’ Championship in 2017 and 2018 amid a mix of management missteps and operational errors.
By 2019, Arrivabene was replaced by Mattia Binotto, who inherited a team still hungry for glory.
While Hamilton has been meticulously documenting Ferrari’s weaknesses and strengths, Arrivabene remains unconvinced that a stack of notes will move the needle. The former team boss seems to suggest that, in the harsh reality of Formula 1, goodwill and ambition alone rarely translate to results.
Hamilton, undeterred, continues to push for change: “Time will tell whether or not we act on those things… I’m hopeful for us making progress.”
Whether the Brit’s dossiers will spark Ferrari’s next renaissance – or just join the long list of well-intentioned but ignored paperwork – remains to be seen.
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