Guenther Steiner feels Lewis Hamilton's honeymoon period with Ferrari lasts 6-months before the media turns on him

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner felt that Lewis Hamilton's honeymoon period with Ferrari would last six months and then, the media would turn on him. The 7-time world champion shocked everyone in 2024 when he decided that it was time for him to leave Mercedes and pursue a different challenge.

However, there are concerns regarding Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari. He did not have the best 2024 F1 season. At Mercedes, he was quite comprehensively outperformed by his teammate George Russell, as he struggled to adapt to the challenges of the new car.

In 2025, Hamilton would go to Ferrari, an entirely different team with a different culture, and to add to it, a teammate like Charles Leclerc, who's probably as competent as Russell was at Mercedes. Talking about the move, Guenther Steiner felt that Hamilton would get around six months where he'll be given the luxury to become a part of the team.

If Lewis Hamilton missed a step in this process, the pressure would start to rise. Steiner told GPBlog:

“He will have got what you call it, a period of time. There’s a word for it where nobody will attack him. It’s not going to be two years, it’s going to be six months. Then the pressure will start to come and the criticism. Everything he does will be second-guessed and questioned."

He added:

"But you’ve got a period of time where you can make it work, and you just need to focus on that to make it work. If it doesn’t work, deal with it when you get there. Care, but don’t deal with something before it happened.”

Steiner feels Lewis Hamilton is well aware of the challenge at hand

Talking about the Brit, Steiner felt that Lewis Hamilton was well aware of the challenge at hand. He knew what was in store if things didn't go his way but was backing himself to make everything work at Ferrari. He said, as per the aforementioned source:

“You never have to think about that because you are never going to do something thinking it doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work, you deal with it when you get there. If you go in that it couldn’t work, you shouldn’t be doing it. I say that because Lewis is well aware, ‘I’m gonna make this work’."

He added:

"Not to waste time thinking it couldn’t work because that takes energy. So put the best in he can. Obviously, he thought long about this decision, and he said this is what I want to do, and now he has to follow through with it. That could be the thing that Ferrari is a World Champion again.”

If Lewis Hamilton did end up with a title in Ferrari, it would make him the most successful driver ever in F1 history, as he would eclipse Michael Schumacher's seven world titles.