Alain Prost says there’s no doubt in his mind that Lewis Hamilton still has what it takes, despite the current scrutiny of his performances.

The seven-time F1 World Champion is facing a huge challenge to adjust to Ferrari and become a title contender again, but Alain Prost believes the British driver can still do it, despite the narrative of him being past it prevailing on social media.

Alain Prost: The media say ‘Hamilton has lost his level’

Aside from a peerless performance in the Chinese Grand Prix sprint, Hamilton has had an underwhelming start to life at Ferrari as the seven-time F1 World Champion has taken on a new challenge in his quest to land a record-breaking eighth title.

Charles Leclerc has had the upper hand throughout and is the only one of the duo to have scored a podium in a Grand Prix so far as he finished third in Saudi Arabia.

Hamilton has been open about his struggles to get used to the car and the team and has forecast a year of doom and gloom as the scale of the adjustment has hit home.

Miami was a comparatively stronger showing from Hamilton, who came home behind Leclerc but had occupied the same part of the race track in the latter stages of the race as their respective strategies played out.

But it was Ferrari’s indecision when it came to team orders that frustrated Hamilton, who hit out at what he said was “not good teamwork” over team radio, before sarcastically asking if he should “let Carlos Sainz through as well” when he was given the instruction to let Leclerc past him.

With the honeymoon period between Hamilton and Ferrari seemingly over, leading to intense media and social media scrutiny, one man who has experienced similar frustrations with the Scuderia is four-time F1 World Champion Alain Prost.

Prost was infamously fired from Ferrari in 1991 after comments he made about the car being a “truck” proved the straw that broke the camel’s back of a deteriorating relationship, but was made in a pre-social media era.

While such pressures within a team can build up regardless of external scrutiny like that from social media, the Frenchman reckons that the image currently of Hamilton is not completely accurate and has been created by noise from commenters on various social media platforms.

“There’s the media, which today have an influence on social networks,” Prost said of Hamilton in an interview with France’s l’Equipe.

“If you listen to them today, ‘Lando Norris has no chance, Lewis Hamilton has lost his level’.

“That’s precisely because Lewis is also very outspoken. His great strength has always been admitting his mistakes, but by doing so publicly, he undermines his image and perhaps even his confidence.

“People say he’s finished, but we saw with his sprint victory in Shanghai that he’s not.”

More on Lewis Hamilton

👉 Lewis Hamilton car collection: Take a closer look at his incredible private garage

👉 10 biggest sports deals in history: Where does Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari salary rank?

Alain Prost ‘considering turning off Instagram’

Prost recently revealed that the way social media shapes narratives around drivers and F1 personalities has had him considering reaching for the delete button on his accounts.

Primarily, his own experience has centred on his historical rivalry with the late Ayrton Senna, a relationship which had thawed into friendship by the time of the Brazilian’s death at Imola in 1994.

“I can’t not think about Ayrton, fortunately or unfortunately,” Prost said, revealing that the extent of the hostility he receives on social media has him questioning whether he wishes to continue being publicly accessible.

“For example, I’m considering turning off my Instagram, because I get messages every day, really every day without exception – from time to time there’s a hateful one, that can happen.

“My biggest fan base on social media is from Brazil, of all places, so I’m forced to think of him.

“Indirectly, I’ve been living around this story for 30 years, and it will probably stay that way for the rest of my life.

“Life consists of many parts: the path to motorsport, my career, and now.

“In the 30 years [since the end of my career] I have done a lot, but it is hardly talked about, I get the feeling that my life is just this Prost-Senna duel.”

Read Next: ‘Our mistake’ – Alpine make major Fernando Alonso ‘slipped away’ admission