A seventh-place finish in Saudi Arabia for Lewis Hamilton should have been a promising day, but the seven-time World Champion sounded frankly despondent after the race.

Why? He simply doesn’t see a fix for the Ferrari SF-25 this season, expecting a “painful” F1 2025 season.

Lewis Hamilton on the ‘painful’ Saudi Arabian GP

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Charles Leclerc snagged the final step on the podium at the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but his Ferrari teammate would have to content himself with a seventh-place finish — exactly where he started.

At a difficult track like the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, that could have been considered a decent day, but for Lewis Hamilton, “It was horrible.”

During the race, Hamilton swapped positions several times with the McLaren of Lando Norris, but it was the latter driver that assumed the sixth-place position.

While Norris was able to fight up to a fourth-place finish after starting from 10th, though, the SF-25 proved to be a much different beast. Hamilton started the race in seventh, and he was seventh at the finish after raising concerns about the way the car was “sliding” throughout the Grand Prix.

More data analysis from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix:

👉 Lewis Hamilton telemetry data exposes critical Ferrari issues in Saudi Arabia

👉 What the data reveals about Lando Norris’ costly Saudi Arabian GP qualifying crash

According to Lewis Hamilton, there were “zero” positives after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix — aside from Leclerc’s podium, “which is great for the team.”

After declaring his race “horrible,” the seven-time champion continued, “Not enjoyable at all.

“I was just sliding around. First stint, massive understeer, car not turning, and then massive deg, and in the second stint, slightly better balance but still just no pace.

“Pretty bad.”

It’s a shocking dip in performance for Ferrari’s latest driver considering that in the second race weekend of the year, he won the sprint race in China from pole position.

In the three Grands Prix since, Hamilton has continued to struggle — and he doesn’t know why.

“I don’t have an answer for you, no,” he said when asked where that China performance went.

“There’s nothing. Balance, struggling to feel the car beneath me, but there’s no particular thing.

“It’s just, there’s nothing to say, ‘Hey, this is the issue.’”

And he’s not anticipating any changes.

“At the moment, there’s no fix,” he said.

“This is how it’s going to be for the rest of the year. It’s just going to be painful.”

Lewis Hamilton currently sits seventh in the World Championship standings with 33 points to leader Oscar Piastri’s 99 and teammate Charles Leclerc’s 50.

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