Giedo van der Garde admits he was completely wrong about one 2025 F1 driver who is now getting destroyed by his teammate

Several pundits and key F1 figures made their predictions for the 2025 season before the opening race in Melbourne. After five races, many of them have already been proven wrong.

McLaren were the clear favourites after blitzing the field in pre-season testing. Many assumed that Lando Norris would lead the charge for the title, having challenged Max Verstappen in 2024, but came up short by 63 points.

That seemed to be the case after Australia, when Norris took pole position and the win. But after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, teammate Oscar Piastri has the upper hand.

The Aussie has won three races already and has a 10-point lead over Norris – who has qualified on the front row once since Melbourne – heading into Miami. Piastri ‘forcefully’ took the number one status at McLaren from Norris with his Jeddah win as he looks to become champion.

Verstappen cannot be counted out of the title race at Red Bull with some impressive performances in the difficult RB21, while Mercedes have also been encouraging. Despite the expectations at the start of the season, Ferrari have been almost nowhere in 2025.

The Maranello outfit built arguably F1’s strongest ever driver pairing as they signed Lewis Hamilton to partner with Charles Leclerc. Many expected the seven-time world champion to find success with Ferrari in 2025 – thus far, it has been the exact opposite.

Giedo van der Garde admits he was completely wrong about Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari

Hamilton’s move to Ferrari sparked huge excitement, but it would be a difficult challenge as the 40-year-old had only driven Mercedes-powered cars in F1. Despite needing to learn a new environment, car and language, it did not stop people from setting the bar incredibly high.

Ferrari fans demanded the world championship from Hamilton at the start of the season. Former F1 driver Giedo van der Garde also backed the Brit for ’17 to 18 podiums’ and that he would take the fight to Verstappen for the title.

Besides winning the Sprint race in Shanghai, it has been an underwhelming start to the season for Hamilton. He has recorded a best finish of fifth in Bahrain as Leclerc has established a clear advantage.

Speaking with RacingNews365, van der Garde says Hamilton has received a ‘slap on the ears’ from his teammate in 2025. The former Caterham driver thinks the Brit is lacking confidence with the current era of cars, with his age also being a factor in his poor start to the year.

Asked about his pre-season prediction, he said: “That was a bit of my gut feeling and of course the wish was also really the father of the thought. You just hope that if Hamilton takes such a step to Ferrari it will be a success. But to be fair, he does get a slap on the ears from his teammate and hard too.”

Asked what has gone wrong for Hamilton, van der Garde replied: “Confidence. That is the most important thing when he entered Formula 1, he was a cannon, young and eager.

“There he sat next to Fernando Alonso and later he knew with Nico Rosberg that he actually had the upper hand and that he had beaten him quite easily since karting.

“He’s now dealing with a different generation. He’s getting older and he also suffered a blow when he failed to win that eighth world title.

“But as I said, he’s also going to have to deal with a younger generation that is a bit better at handling the driving techniques of the current generation of cars than Hamilton has learned. I think that’s a problem he can’t get out of at the moment.”

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Lewis Hamilton has a lot of work to do to get the edge over Charles Leclerc at Ferrari

The intra-team battle between Hamilton and Leclerc was predicted to be one of, if not the closest fight on the 2025 grid. Many expected the former to be initially on the back foot – Jeddah highlighted how far behind he actually is.

Hamilton was despondent in Saudi Arabia as he qualified half a second down on Leclerc in seventh before finishing there in the race. While the Monagasque driver grabbed Ferrari’s first podium of 2025, his teammate finished over half a minute behind.

Hamilton lost a 168-race streak of being within 30 seconds of his teammate in Jeddah. This alarming pace deficit highlights just how much work the seven-time champion has to do in Maranello.

Ferrari say it is ‘essential’ Hamilton changes his driving style to adapt to the SF-25. However, there lies another problem as Hamilton has his own driving style ‘rammed’ into him from when he was a child, leading up to his F1 debut.

The Brit likes to be late on the brakes and relies on a strong rear end – something that is not translating at Ferrari. With 19 Grand Prix to go, Hamilton has plenty of time to fix his woes, but the job at hand is monumental.