49-year-old F1 expert on what Lewis Hamilton did that led to a loss of qualifying performance

Lewis Hamilton took a step off the pedal and stopped pushing in qualifying when Mercedes started struggling, and this is the reason why the British driver is finding it hard to recapture that form. That's the view of Juan Pablo Montoya, who was critiquing the Brit's loss of the one-lap supremacy that he's enjoyed throughout his career.

When Lewis Hamilton first joined F1, the thing that stood out about him was the fact that he had prodigious speed. The driver was able to wring the lap time out of the car in qualifying in a manner that not many other drivers were capable of doing. When he finally got a car capable of getting the strong results, the driver racked up one record after the other.

At this moment in his career, Hamilton already sits at more than 100 pole positions. In the ground effect era, however, there has been a dip. We have seen Lewis Hamilton struggle over a lap. George Russell outqualified him in both 2023 and 2024.

The 2025 F1 season has been much worse, where he has been dominated by Charles Leclerc at Ferrari as well. Juan Pablo Montoya felt that one of the key reasons behind one of the best qualifiers ever having such a run was that he stopped pushing in qualifying when the Mercedes lost competitiveness in 2023 and 2024.

Once you lose the edge, you never get it back, and that was what Hamilton has struggled with right now. Talking about the driver and his future if things didn't change, he said, via CoinPoker:

“I think he’ll wait next year for sure to see where they are. And if they struggle next year and he’s not competitive, I think he might just go, ‘You know what? That’s it. I’ve got other things in my life.’ At the end of the day, he’s got a long contract with them to be an ambassador whether he drives a car or not. But you don’t want to see Lewis leave on a low."

He added:

“It’s a wakeup call. In the last couple of years when the Mercedes stopped being really good, I think he backed off in qualifying because there was no need. And I think to get it back is really difficult."

Charles Leclerc looks comfortable with the car while Lewis Hamilton struggles

Adding on to it, Juan Pablo Montoya felt that the Ferrari was also not set up according to Lewis Hamilton's driving style. Citing how Charles Leclerc looked comfortable in the car and Hamilton didn't, Pablo Montoya said, via the aforementioned source:

“Look at an onboard of Lewis in qualifying. That car does not suit him at all. You look at Charles, and Charles looks like Max, looks like Lando. He is precise. And Lewis is fighting with the car. He doesn’t trust the car. He’s trying, but it is just the way the car is set up for him does not match his driving style”

Lewis Hamilton would be hoping for an upturn in form for sure because the kind of money that the driver is being given by Ferrari, a better run of results is certainly an expectation.