Ferrari made the huge call for F1 2025 to oust Carlos Sainz, in favour of bringing in seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes.

And with Hamilton struggling to make an impact in the early stages of his Ferrari career, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown – who worked with Sainz at the team from 2019-20 – pointed out that he “luckily” never had to make such a call on Sainz, as he explained the complexity of the decision which Ferrari made.

Ferrari dropped Carlos Sainz for Lewis Hamilton: Decision paying off?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

It was a choice made by Ferrari before the 2024 season got underway, meaning Sainz spent the full campaign knowing his F1 future was outside of Ferrari with Hamilton on his way.

Sainz nonetheless won the 2024 Australian and Mexican GPs, landing himself a multi-year deal with Williams.

It has been a challenging start to life with their new team for both Hamilton and Sainz, but while Sainz appears to be turning the tide at Williams after strong displays in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – scoring a P8 finish at the latter – Hamilton’s situation at Ferrari is growing increasingly concerning.

As Hamilton’s downbeat nature seemingly continues to spiral, he spoke after the Saudi Arabian GP of there being “no fix” and a “painful” season ahead, with Hamilton yet to finish a grand prix ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc, while a large gap has opened up between the pair in one-lap pace.

This has led to increasing scrutiny on Ferrari over their choice to give up Sainz for Hamilton, and Brown was asked by Marca whether he would have made the same decision as Ferrari boss.

“It’s not as simple as that, there are a lot of dynamics around it that play a role,” he responded.

“Lewis is a seven-time champion and there are not many occasions when you can have a sportsman like that in your team. But, at the same time, Carlos was amazing with us, a good friend, a great driver.”

And so, Brown concluded that: “Luckily, I didn’t find myself in the situation where I had to make that decision.”

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc head-to-head

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

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

With Hamilton and Ferrari having become a major talking point in the early stages of F1 2025, it led to Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur launching an X-rated response after it was put to him by a reporter that Hamilton had suffered a dramatic drop in form.

“It’s not dramatically,” he responded, speaking with the media including PlanetF1.com after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

“We did five races so far. I know that you want to have the big headlines tomorrow that ‘Fred said this.’

“But this is f***ing bull***t. At the end of the day, we are in competition. You have ups and downs.

“When we have ups, we are not World Champions. When we have downs, we are not nowhere. It’s just a competition.

“I’m not sure that you draw the same conclusion with Max [Verstappen] last week when he was seventh [in Bahrain].

“It is like it is. The competition is tight.

“You have 10 cars and a couple of tenths. Have a look at Max. He won in Japan. He finished 30 seconds behind [Oscar] Piastri in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia he was P2 and had pole position.

“We just have to stay calm. You can do whatever you want. I don’t want to worry for you. At least for us as a team, we have to work step by step.

“I think it paid off last year to do hundredths of seconds and hundredths of seconds and we need to keep the same approach.

“I will never be the guy who says we are World Champions or we are nowhere.

“We are a team. We are struggling on the weekend, we have good results on the weekend.

“It’s just that we have to improve step by step and stay calm.”

And Vasseur would affirm Ferrari’s continued commitment to Hamilton.

That was after Hamilton – in one of several deflated statements at the Saudi Arabian GP – had hinted that patience was wearing thin with the Ferrari higher-ups over his performances.

“I will be 2,000 per cent behind him,” said Vasseur on Hamilton.

“I will give him support and we will start from tomorrow morning to try to find solutions and reasons and to work on it early in the morning.

“But honestly, I am not too worried.

“If you have a look on what he did in China [winning the Sprint from pole] or what he did in the race in Bahrain last week, or even on the first part of the session in this weekend, the potential is there for sure.

“We just have to adjust the balance because we are, collectively, Lewis and us, we are struggling with the balance of his car and [how] he is working the tyres.

“It’s a kind of negative spot but I think the potential of the car is there and we will try to solve that.”

Hamilton is 16 points behind Leclerc in the early Drivers’ Championship standings.

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