Lewis Hamilton’s start to life at Ferrari in F1 2025 has been a “continuation” of his difficult final season with Mercedes in 2024.

That is the opinion of Hamilton’s former Mercedes team-mate and Sky F1 pundit Nico Rosberg, who fears time has finally caught up with the seven-time World Champion.

Nico Rosberg fears Lewis Hamilton’s struggles ‘age related’

Despite winning two races in his final season with Mercedes last year, Hamilton was heavily beaten in qualifying conditions by emerging team-mate George Russell.

It prompted Hamilton to confess that he is “not fast anymore” at the penultimate race of 2024 in Qatar, just weeks before he arrived at Ferrari on a lucrative multi-year contract.

Hamilton’s struggles have persisted despite his change of surroundings with the 40-year-old outqualified by new team-mate Charles Leclerc at seven of the eight races held so far this season.

Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc: Ferrari head-to-head scores for F1 2025

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Rosberg famously defeated Hamilton to lift the World Championship at the 2016 season finale in Abu Dhabi before announcing his retirement from F1 five days later.

And the German believes the “dip” Hamilton suffered towards the end of his Mercedes career has shown no signs of being resolved so far at Ferrari.

He told Sky F1: “It’s a little bit of a continuation of the form from last year, where already there was a bit of a dip there and George had the upper hand and was beating him at Mercedes and also finished ahead in the points.

“And now it’s continued that a little bit. Just a little bit lacking here and there, especially in ultimate pace in qualifying.

“We know Charles is an incredible qualifier, so Lewis has to fight a little bit more there.”

Asked why Hamilton’s struggles have persisted at Mercedes, Rosberg suggested that that the “answer” is likely that his former team-mate’s age is starting to have an impact on his performance by making him “a little bit slower.”

He said: “That’s a good question.

“My answer would be: even if he’s the greatest of all time, at some point you are going to get a little bit slower and that’s age related.

“And when you’re 40, it’s going to happen sooner rather than later, so the question is whether that age has come where you start to get a little bit slower.

“And even a tenth or something makes a huge difference in the sport, especially when you’re up against some of the greatest from the new generation [like] Charles Leclerc, who is considered one of the absolute best qualifiers out there.”

Rosberg’s latest comments come after he expressed sympathy for Hamilton on Friday at the Spanish Grand Prix, where he described the Ferrari SF-25 as “the worst” car on the grid based on his impressions from watching trackside during FP2.

He said: “The worst car is the Ferrari.

“Oh my goodness! Poor Lewis Hamilton. That car is a handful. It has the biggest understeer and it has the biggest snap oversteer.

“Lewis [had] a lot of understeer, then you can start to see the movement on the steering wheel.

“Turn 7, even on the entry, the rear is just so loose and snappy, so even on the entry Lewis had to fully steer out again to avoid binning.

“I really feel for him at the moment.”

Hamilton enters this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix on the back of a troubled race in Monaco, where he finished more than 51 seconds adrift of the race-winning McLaren of Lando Norris.

A three-place grid penalty for impeding Max Verstappen, which saw him lose time behind Isack Hadjar’s Racing Bull and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, partly explained Hamilton’s massive deficit to the leaders.

The #44 car also lost more time to the front runners, estimated by Ferrari to be around 10 seconds, in lapped traffic.

More on Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari from PlanetF1.com

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Hamilton’s relationship with race engineer Riccardo Adami came under heavy scrutiny in the aftermath of the Monaco Grand Prix following a series of awkward exchanges between the pair over team radio.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on Thursday, however, Hamilton insisted that his relationship with Adami remains healthy.

He said: “Our relationship is great. No problems.

“We’re constantly learning more and more about each other. We’re constantly adapting to the way both of us like to work. He’s worked with lots of different drivers before.

“We don’t have any problems whatsoever.

“There’s a lot of speculation, most of it is BS.

“Ultimately, we have a great relationship. He’s been amazing to work with. He’s a great guy, working so hard. We both are and we don’t always get it right every weekend.

“Do we have disagreements? Like everyone does in relationships, but we work through them.

“We’re both in it together. We both want to win a championship together. We’re both working towards lifting the team up.

“So it’s just all noise and we don’t really pay any attention to it.

“So it can continue if you want, but it doesn’t make any difference to all the jobs that we’re trying to do.”

Read next: Ferrari make big changes to SF-25 front wing after new FIA tests