Ralf Schumacher identifies the problem Lewis Hamilton is ‘internally’ struggling to overcome at Ferrari this season

A quarter of the way through his first season as a Ferrari Formula 1 driver, Lewis Hamilton might be witnessing his new team going backwards.

Lewis Hamilton’s debut at Ferrari saw him and Charles Leclerc struggle into the top 10 during a torrential Australian Grand Prix.

Although Hamilton wasn’t pleased with Ferrari’s strategy that day, it would have been easy to suggest that the race was a one-off given the unusual circumstances of the race.

However, with each passing race weekend, it’s become more and more evident that Ferrari aren’t going to challenge for the constructors’ championship and that both of their drivers are unlikely to catch the likes of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Hamilton has struggled to adapt to aspects of Ferrari’s car, and at the Miami Grand Prix, communication was once again an issue.

It expected that one Hamilton radio message in particular would have irked Ferrari, but Ralf Schumacher believes this is becoming a critical issue for the team to address.

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Ralf Schumacher thinks Ferrari are still ‘internally’ working on their communication with Lewis Hamilton

Schumacher was asked on the Backstage Boxengasse Podcast about what was happening behind the scenes at Ferrari after the race in Miami and explained, “Let me put it this way, Lewis is, of course, so successful, so independent, that one has to approach it very carefully.

“But what he can’t wipe away, of course, is that people have gotten to know him only a little bit internally.

“Of course, something like that [his radio messages] will leave scratches, no question about it, and that will stick.

“He has to decide for himself, I’m telling you, you just have to be big enough in the race to say, ‘OK, that was emotional, that went wrong, we shouldn’t have passed and I’m sorry.’

“Then that would have been gone. There is a need for clarification now, and they will definitely talk about it internally too as to how to deal with this in the future.

“I could imagine that will still be his opinion at the end, because, as he said, ‘Should I let Carlos Sainz through,’ I think that doesn’t really fit with his performances at the moment you have to say, no matter how many times he’s been world champion.

“He was closer to Charles Leclerc, but I think he should keep the ball a little flatter at the moment.”

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Ralf Schumacher tells Lewis Hamilton to learn a lesson from Oliver Bearman

Hamilton spent 12 seasons with Mercedes before joining Ferrari, the longest spell any driver has raced for a single manufacturer.

Their success working together was unprecedented but has left Hamilton trying to adapt as quickly as possible to a host of new procedures and processes.

Schumacher has told Hamilton to take inspiration from Oliver Bearman and how quickly he’s got up to speed at Haas.

Bearman and the other rookies on the grid are far less experienced than Hamilton but also have the benefit of not being as entrenched in certain behaviours as the seven-time world champion.

Hamilton and his race engineer Riccardo Adami are slowly adapting to working with each other but it’s going to take a long time for the pair to have the same relationship as when he worked alongside Peter Bonnington at Mercedes.

This isn’t a problem that only Hamilton has come up against at Ferrari in recent times.

Both Leclerc and Carlos Sainz struggled with Ferrari’s indecisiveness in the past, and it’s just another issue to add to the list of problems team principal Fred Vasseur has to solve.