2 Soft Compounds

The Rise & Fall of Lewis Hamilton

• W4 Podcast Studio & GrandPrix247 • Season 1 • Episode 29

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The Rise & Fall of Lewis Hamilton. 

This week on 2 Soft Compounds, we're dedicating the whole podcast to Lewis Hamilton who's dream Ferrari move is rapidly becoming a nightmare. Hosts Rick and Paul, alongside special guest Damian Reid, unpack the worrying signs surrounding the seven-time world champ: from his puzzling form slump to cryptic comments questioning whether he’ll even see out the season. Has the sport’s most dominant driver finally hit the wall?

The guys dive into what’s really going wrong - is it age, car setup or just a culture shock inside Maranello? They explore the eerie parallels with Michael Schumacher’s late-career move to Mercedes and why history may be repeating itself with another legend lost in the wrong red.

Plus, a brutally honest take on whether Hamilton and Ferrari ever made sense competitively… or whether this was just a stock-boosting PR fantasy that’s now unravelling in real time.

Is it the end of an era? Or just a bump in the road? Hit play to find out and don’t forget to follow us @2softcompounds on Instagram. 

Production Credits:

Presented by: Rick Houghton & Paul Velasco
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producer: Ian Carless
Produced by: W4 Podcast Studio & GrandPrix247

Rick Houghton:

This week on Two Soft Compounds.

Paul Velasco:

Everything would be fine this summer if Lewis was quicker than Charles.

Rick Houghton:

We saw it with Seb Vettel, you know.

Damien Reid:

Won four times with Red Bull, then goes to Ferrari and collapses like a flan in an oven, maybe he does need someone back in his corner, but don't bottle it up inside yourself, because it might spill out into a press conference.

Paul Velasco:

Lewis didn't have a future because George was owning him.

Damien Reid:

But it's the general Italian lackadaisicalical attitude. He's not used to working in those conditions. I think with the new rules, new regs, the whole thing coming along, it might be just too much of a headache for him. Max verstappen to ferrari is the solution this is two soft compounds I don't make mistakes.

Paul Velasco:

I make prophecies that immediately turn out to be wrong.

Rick Houghton:

Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does. Hey, welcome to a special edition of Two Soft Compounds. We're in the summer break in Formula One right now, so obviously not much current news to be able to talk about. It's me, rick, with Paul Velasco, the editor-in-chief and founder of GrandPrix247.com, and we've also got Damien Reid on the line with us today. Damien is a F1 motoring journalist and former Formula 1 commentator, so the special is all about Lewis Hamilton, and I thought I'd start by just summing up his career in general. Of course, he is seven times world champion, equaling that of Michael Schumacher, but he does hold the records for the most wins at 105, the most pole positions at 104, and the most podium finishes at 202. There's other records too.

Rick Houghton:

Now we know he started in karting and was noticed by Ron Dennis at McLaren, who signed him up to the junior McLaren team. He came up to the junior McLaren team, he came up through the ranks and did open-seater racing in Formula 3, formula Renault, formula 2, and then got his break in 2007 driving the McLaren Mercedes, and that's how the Formula 1 career started. He had a few ups and downs in the first few years. He could have won the championship in 2007, but for some strategic McLaren errors and a couple of personal errors the Chinese Grand Prix comes to mind for that but then he went on in 2013, moved to Mercedes, he won, of course, multiple world championships with Toto Wolff and then, of course, moved to Ferrari for the start of the 2025 series.

Rick Houghton:

Now I've summed that up really, really quickly, but at the moment, lewis Hamilton is down in the doldrums. He's not performing well. He's struggling to put it on a par with Charles Leclerc in that Ferrari team, and recently his behavior has been most bizarre. So let's talk about this and first of all, damo, I'm going to throw it to you what's going on with Lewis Hamilton?

Damien Reid:

Wow. Very simply, we're seeing a broken man. His comments that he came out with in Hungary is a guy that's been to me, is a guy that's been sidetracked by all the wrong things that are around and he's just. You know, this is the first time that I was thinking about this the other day. This is the first time that he's driving a Formula One car that's not been built around him. He's had to adapt to someone else's car and, going back to the McLaren days, even, it was pretty much around him. He was Ron's baby and so he grew into that car and took it on. Then it moved to Mercedes and it's been his car. Now he's had to adapt to effectively a Charles Leclerc car.

Damien Reid:

But it's the atmosphere, it's the environment. It know, with the photo shoot in front of the Ferrari in Enzo's house with the cape, was a frigging fashion shoot. It wasn't to announce a new driver to a team and to me. Both of them, both Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton, have come together for the wrong reason. Lewis Hamilton came for the golden handshake, the golden watch, for the ambassador role, to be a Ferrari driver and bloody Ferrari signed him up because their shares went up 40%. There's nothing to do with on track, and now they've got it coming to them.

Paul Velasco:

Jeez Damo go man, go man, I love it. Look, first of all, demeanor, you mentioned demeanor. Look, thank you for the summary. First of all, demeanor, you mentioned demeanor. I look, I'm only thank you for the summary, first of all. That was great.

Paul Velasco:

And, damo, I can't dispute anything you said. I'm going to be a little, maybe harsher in some areas, but less harsh in the other areas. I don't think he's lost it. I'm just going to give you this my philosophy on how racing drivers evolve good kit, you know, you can't actually ever say that Lewis had bad kit. And when he's had bad kit, he's been beaten. Let's be honest, george beat him last year. He owned him big time and George, I still believe, was reining himself in because he didn't want to piss on the legacy of Lewis, right? But his decline has been two or three years as far as I'm concerned. And really there would be no problem at Ferrari at all at all. Everything would be fine this summer if Lewis was quicker than Charles. That's the only difference, the only reason why they're going to change the psychology and the team and they've got to go and there's stuff behind. It's all bullshit. You know what I mean. At the end of the day, the fastest guy is Charles, and when Lewis can beat Charles and he struggled to beat George, okay, and he's 40 years old. So my philosophy is this is guys like Lewis and Fernando and you see it with Fernando very, very well they had very different drivers, but Fernando is fantastic if the car these days is good. If the car is good, he sniffs a chance. He'll put it right there.

Paul Velasco:

When the car and the circumstances were good, lewis won China Sprint. It's an anomaly, but he won it. That showed what he's capable of when everything is perfect. But unfortunately, these days the margins are so small and McLaren has such an advantage that Ferrari can be second in the pecking order one weekend and fourth in the other. And Lewis does not know how to. When he lost to Rosberg, he was strong. If you put him in that car now, it'd be a different story. He'd be matching Leclerc, if not beating him. But as Deimos says, this is a guy who's just basically lost it. He's lost confidence in himself and I'm going to put it out there and say if this goes on for another two or three races, I think he's going to do a Niki Lauda.

Rick Houghton:

He's going to do Niki Lauda, he's going to walk. We've seen this happen before with former world champions. I remember when Schumacher came back to the Mercedes car Now, all right, that Mercedes car at the time was not performing, it was not up the grid but I remember having a conversation with James Allison. I said, listen, schumacher's still got it. I mean, he's a multiple world champion, he's one of the best drivers we've ever seen in this sport. And he said no. He said I guarantee, when he comes back, his age will have a major impact on this and he's not. If you remember, he put it on pole for Monaco in the Mercedes, but he didn't start on pole because he had a grid penalty. That was about the highlight of his appearance with Mercedes. We saw it with Seb Vettel, you know, won four times with Red Bull, then goes to Ferrari and collapses like a flan in an oven. We've seen it with, you know, multiple world champions over the years. So it is age.

Rick Houghton:

I think there's an age-related thing in there, but obviously, as Damien pointed out before, I think it's having good kit. I mean, I look back at Hamilton's career when he was at McLaren. He was beaten by Jenson Button in 2011. And then, obviously, in Mercedes, he was beaten by Rosberg in 2016. But he's always had pretty decent kit and, I think, coming up through the ranks.

Rick Houghton:

If you look at his record in karting and if you look at his record in Formula Renault F2 and F3, he didn't always have the best kit but didn't always produce the best results. I mean, he didn't win the F3 championship, for instance. So you know, he's had decent kit and he's had age on his side and he's had that sort of killer instinct on the track on his side, although I've always rated Lewis Hamilton as a fairly calm and collected driver and his driving style is very smooth. I just think you know, is it just age or is it? You know, the linkage of the age of the driver and the fact that he's done it, he's won it and that's you know? He's got no more ambition left apart from to win the eighth title. Or is it a massive combination of going to a car which he hasn't had designed around him, which Damien was alluding to earlier?

Damien Reid:

Yeah, I mean you've unpackaged some really good points there. Certainly, age has got a lot to do with it, as you said. You know Paul, he's 40 years old now and he's competing in arguably the closest championship we've had in quite a long time. And you look at the result in Hungary seven tenths of a second, you know, between first and second, with no safety car and no intervention, which is amazing. In first and second, with no safety car and no intervention, which is amazing. But you look at the qualifying if a driver is losing a 10th of a second here and there because of his age in previous years that might put you on the second or the fourth row of the grid. Now it puts you on the fifth or the sixth row. So you've got to cut him some slack. And that's what Fernandez obviously struggling with as well. Age and physics and all that. It doesn't change for anyone.

Damien Reid:

Yeah, I mean you mentioned Michael Schumacher with Mercedes, and the more I think about it, the more I can see parallels between then and now. Yeah, me too, because, to be fair, michael Schumacher, I mean categorically he was the greatest driver at the time period and he retired. He came out of retirement, he dabbled with the bikes for a bit. He came back and got into Mercedes because he always wanted to drive for Mercedes, being a German. And in my mind again, he came back for the wrong reason for the retirement package and it was a dud. It was absolutely flat.

Damien Reid:

That's exactly what Lewis is doing. He's always wanted to drive for Ferrari. He was saying that when he was with Ron Dennis and he owned a couple of Ferrari road cars and that was in the back of his mind and they got him. Freddy Vasseur, who he's known since Formula 3 days, managed to get him for the wrong reason. So you know, I just think the age and not thinking about trying to get another championship again, and rather than thinking about how I can end my career, I think it's to do with the way the Ferrari team is run as well.

Rick Houghton:

You know, fred was obviously the chief of that team, but it's the general Italian lackadaisical attitude that we see, race in, race out when it comes to things like strategy calls, and they go yeah, stay out. Well, yeah, I want, I want to, I want to come in, no, stay out. We think that's better. You know those things that we've heard, certainly during the course of this. He's not used to working in those conditions. He's used to being the superstar in Mercedes who tells his engineers how he wants the car set up and they go and do just that, whereas Ferrari, he'll put his input in and they'll do what they think is right and not really consider the thoughts of the driver. And it certainly plays out during the races when it comes to strategy.

Paul Velasco:

Listen, I want to just mention something before I forget about it. It's his demeanor. You know when we've been? Oh, I've never seen lewis like this. He's, you know, like the way he was talking, and that I'm going to beg to differ, because I actually said that myself. I actually wrote it in one of my reports. I haven't ever seen lewis like this. But then my brain started rewinding and I remember one thing it was very vicious that he did and it was exactly the same vibe, and Damo will remember this. When they interviewed him and Rosberg won the championship, he said yeah, yeah, you know, whatever, when I write my book, you'll find out. You know what I mean. Yeah, do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, it's like that. I just felt the same vibe of him, kind of like alluding to something Like. He also alluded very slyly to something. He said it off the cuff. He said something like and there's things happening in the background. Fuck off Lewis.

Damien Reid:

Seriously, bro, he's an emotional roller coaster. You know, if he comes out in Zandvoort and brains it and finishes it in front of Charlotte Clerk, we'll all be wondering what we're saying right now, because he'll be full of optimism and everything else. And you know what it's like. Pv. He's been up and down. We've met this guy in press conferences when he's We've loved him for 20 years, yeah exactly when he's had a good day, he'll talk forever.

Damien Reid:

When he has a bad day, they're one syllable answers and then he buggers off. So, yeah, I don't know. I just think at the moment, and to me, when you talk about demeanor and everything else, one of the things that stuck in my head as a little thing was, uh, during fp3 last time out, when charlotte clerk was in the car doing laps and they're trying to get as much information as they can. It's their last chance to get information. He's talking to a movie star in the back of the garage. At least talk to your engineers if you're not in a run cycle, don't talk to some guy from frigging Hollywood, like it's just wrong you know, yeah, it's totally wrong.

Paul Velasco:

I think you hit the nail on the head there. When I say the wrong reasons, I say look, he was over at Mercedes. Let's be honest, there was no future for Lewis at Mercedes. I mean, george they needed and there was Antonelli barking. So not that they had to find Antonelli, didn't they? But Lewis didn't have a future because George was owning him, the whole Ferrari thing, as you said. It was a fantastic thing.

Paul Velasco:

And it really reminds me, because I remember also Michael posing with the guy with the moustache, zetcher, was it Zetcher, zeta, zetcher. Yeah, the Mercedes, yeah, and he also had a suit on. He also looked quite dapper, anyway, so there is that parallel. But the other parallel that I hope doesn't happen. But I think and I'm going to again peak your memories on the Schumacher story, that big crash he had at Singapore. Do you remember that he had a massive one, like it was a proper brain fade moment. It was nothing, it was self-induced, and he got out of the car and he was standing next to it and his head was down, his whole body was down. I think that moment he said fuck, that, I'm going to go skiing.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, I think you're probably right. I mean, looking back at Hamilton's history, I mean we've seen this season. First of all, it was the first season he was outscored by a teammate in Formula One in the form of Jenson Button, which I mentioned earlier. It was also before going into the 2011 season, he'd sacked his father as his manager and the word was that he was having a lot of personal difficulties behind the scenes. So 2011 is a year that stands out as one where we saw the more sulky Hamilton, even though he was young enough to perform at the top of his game. And I think that sulkiness, you know, you could say he's used to. He's used to having everything his own way. He's used to having the best toys in the playpen, and then he goes to Ferrari. He doesn't have his own way and he spits his dummy out, as you know. But I think it's more than that. I mean, I think that's harsh. I think that's harsh.

Paul Velasco:

I think that yeah, I think that's harsh.

Rick Houghton:

I think that's harsh. Yeah, I think it's more than that Him in a press conference saying I'm useless, I think they need to hire another driver. I mean, that's a massive statement for any sports person to make.

Paul Velasco:

You know what we need to get a psychologist. We need a psychologist to check that. What do you make of that, david? Because when he said that, I think it almost. You know these boys. They're very childish emotionally. Yeah, because they never grew up in a normal environment. They were just racing drivers all the time. It was almost like he was wanting someone to. Oh no, lewis, you're fantastic, it's just you know, I don't know. It just felt like he was seeking some kind of assurance. I mean, what did you guys make of that?

Damien Reid:

Maybe that's the thing. Maybe he does need someone back in his corner, because he's as you said, rick. You know, when he sacked his father and he went through a very, a very concerted thing to jettison all the people around him, his brother, nicholas, didn't come to races anymore. He dumped his girlfriend, he dumped his father and he decided to go solo.

Paul Velasco:

Even that, wasn't it the bottle lady? What's her name?

Damien Reid:

Angela, yeah, so so he's got no one around him, and I think now you do need a sports psychologist in you.

Paul Velasco:

I thought Martin Hines was there, Wasn't the Hines kid, there the Hines, the karting guy, his big mate.

Damien Reid:

I haven't seen him though I don't know, but I think they're at this level where you need someone that you can lean on to talk to whether it's a mate from school, or whether it's a sports psychologist or someone, but don't bottle it up inside yourself because it might spill out into a press conference, as I think it did with Lewis.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, if you look back at 2016, when Rosberg beat him and Hamilton took it on the chin, there wasn't much sulking going on that year because I think Hamilton had realized that this is a battle that's going to push me all the way. Can I correct you there?

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, he did bitch. He alluded that I don't know there's a conspiracy theory that exploded at the time is when I know damo will know this man and bugs me, damo. What race did the? Did his engine expire while he was leading? The cost of the championship was malaysia, malaysia was it malaysia? Yes, it was malaysia, yes yeah, yep, there's a conspiracy theory that toto blew the engine because they wanted a german world champion yeah, I don't know.

Damien Reid:

And then toto admitted later on, didn't he? He Like a couple of years later, that he never wound the engines up more than about 70% or 65% because they were that dominant that year.

Paul Velasco:

No, no, I'll tell you that year, yeah, but you know when? They'd really fucking wound that thing up. Do you remember the last year when he lost the championship to Max? Those three mercs for Brazil, yes, top shelf rockets, mate. I've never seen such a fast merc in my life. Yeah, remember that. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. No, he's had good kit, he's had lovely kit. Come on, he's had a fantastic run, mate. This guy's 20 years. He's got all those championships. He's a fucking, he's a billionaire. Seriously, bro, you know, seriously, go yacht, go make movies. Honestly, let's get a hungry young guy back in there. You know what I'm saying, but it's not gonna happen also at the moment.

Rick Houghton:

to add to his woes, his burger chains just got into liquidation, by the way, so he's dealing with um off-track stuff as well as the on-track stuff. I mean, let's let me put it out here now how does he bounce back for the second half of this season? Is he now considering, uh, quitting the sport earlier than I hoped? I? He's got a contract with Ferrari to the end of 2026. Is he going to null and void that? Is he going to come back with a new mentality in Zandvoort? Is he going to, you know, turn some sort of corner? Is he going to work harder with the team to make the results slightly more in his favor? Or is he going to throw in the towel and say you know what? I can't beat Charles, I can't beat Shell, I can't beat him.

Damien Reid:

I used to be brilliant. I'm not anymore. And there's the door. Or will Ferrari get sick of it? That's the other side of the coin too, I mean. Yeah, I mean it'll cost him a fair bit of coin to cut his contract short. But I mean, as I said, it might turn around at Zandvoort and everything with Pici If he keeps carrying on and moaning about this and saying they'll need to be replaced and everything else. I mean it might be a situation where Ferrari go. Okay, it was a nice experiment, but we're losing that share value we gained. We're starting to lose. Now we need to do something.

Damien Reid:

In my mind, ferrari have got. I know that Carlos Sainz has been back, talking to them again about he's put his hand up, say remember me, and the team and the guys at the factory still like him and would like to have him back. And Carlos, like a lot of the drivers, are learning to speak the language. They're going down to Cabellino restaurant and hanging out with the team and the mechanics. This is all stuff that Lewis doesn't do and that's not endearing him to the team. But then you've got someone like Oli Behrman, who's still on the Ferrari payroll, who could be dropped into the team Ferrari. In my mind, if Lewis is going to keep going down this path, ferrari should do what Red Bull did with Max and make it a one-person team and just focus on Charles Leclerc and put a young guy in there, save a lot of money and build a car and put your money on the winning horse.

Paul Velasco:

Can I add on to that? I love that idea, but I think you guys are missing the bigger picture. I'm thinking what was an epiphany for me? Look, let's look at the history of Ferrari, Because you know we've got to accept Lewis has got. I'm going to put this out let's just get the Lewis thing out of the way. Three, four more races like this. He walks like Nicky. I'm predicting that, If not, he'll wait until the end of the season, see how he goes next year, or whatever. And like Deimos says, if it's all peachy, it's Antwerp, then reset. But I see choppy water.

Rick Houghton:

I can't see it.

Paul Velasco:

And he's got it and listen, it's like this shut up, lewis beat Charles, then we talk Okay, so you've got to think of life after Lewis. Yeah, Honestly, the drivers that have come to Ferrari and have actually done something changed the culture of the team Niki, lauda, bam, yeah, this car is shit. You can't say that to Enzo. It is shit. Make it better. And they did. And Enzo respected that, because everyone used to give Enzo what he wanted to hear, but not Niki. And they built that car. He could have won If it wasn't for the giant. And they built that car. He could have won If it wasn't for the giant. We haven't had that crash. We had three world titles in a row. Think about that.

Paul Velasco:

Then they had a spell where they had Jody and and Jill and it kind of worked and they should have really released Jill, but Jody won the championship Cool. Then they had a lot of bad luck. Two guys died when they should have won the world championship. Then it got really quiet. They got mansell pross, they got a whole bunch of guys, burger lazy, everything and they brought michael. And what did michael do? After four years, when they were going to fire him, he said fuck you, you're going to do it my way. He put his way into doing it and became the mega team that it was. They really are serious. The ferrari are serious. They take 250 million and they say to max first option option, you join us. That's the only driver that's going to take that team as a one-man team to the top. Charles isn't the guy. I don't think he's the guy.

Rick Houghton:

No one here knows the Italian media better than you, paul, but when the Italian media strike, it's quite punishing, isn't it? I mean, if they turn on a driver like Hamilton, and they have done recently, if they turn on the team, like they had done recently about Fred Vasseur, they get their teeth well and truly stuck in and they have lots of influence, it seems.

Paul Velasco:

Can I say something on that and Damo can correct me on that? Because I do follow the Italian narrative and, honestly, they've been super polite with Lewis. Super polite. Minardi said they cannot fire this guy, give him time. The Italians are saying build a team around him. Honestly, I don't know what you're hearing from Italy, damo.

Damien Reid:

No, but I think you're actually right with that one, because normally the guys from La Gazzetta della Sport are normally ruthless and they get into it. What I found was really interesting was you're right, pv, because what I found really interesting was when they realized that things are going south for the team, that they didn't point the gun at Lewis. They pointed at Fred, who I think has done an absolutely sensational job and has been what 17 bosses until it got to Fred and Fred's turned it around and he brought Lewis in and they go to Fred. To me that made no sense and I never put the tiniest ounce of weight into the story of him leaving or Christian coming in. That was all bullshit. It was never going to happen.

Paul Velasco:

It was just the.

Damien Reid:

Italian press doing Italian press things at the week, but not on Lewis, not on Lewis, not at Charles either, but they were doing it at the weakest link, which is Fred.

Rick Houghton:

They need Bernardo back he. He's the only one who can turn it around.

Paul Velasco:

No, listen, fred's the right guy.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, I think Fred is the right guy, I mean, but I'm going to ask you guys.

Paul Velasco:

No, you haven't answered my question. There was silence. Maybe you didn't hear me. Max Verstappen to Ferrari is the solution.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, but Max is going to wait and see what Red Bull brings in 2026, isn't he? He's not going to throw the towel and he's going to go. Well, you know, next year could be my big chance, because I've had a year with the team now. Next year they can build it more around me than Charles perhaps, and the new regulations could make them streets ahead of everyone else on the grid. That's the logic in my opinion.

Paul Velasco:

But, damo, I was asking you about Verstappen to Ferrari.

Damien Reid:

No, I don't think so, I don't think so.

Damien Reid:

I think for the pretty much for the same reasons as Lewis is that he's going into a team that's been built around someone else and he's going to have to kick some heads. But the thing is they're going to have to listen to the head kicking and cop it which the Italians don't like doing and he's going to have to move to Italy or at least spend a lot of time there. I can't see him doing that either. I just don't think so. I think probably Verstappen have his own guys around him and I still think there's still wind in the sails of him going to Aston Martin and hooking up there, because there's a GT3 program there, there's a Le Mans program there, there's their shares in the company there and there's Adrian Newey there.

Rick Houghton:

So I put more weight in if Max moves, going to the green side rather than the red side, you know earlier in the podcast we were talking about former world champions that move teams and then don't have the success repeated or they struggle a lot. Do you think we could say, if max verstappen moves teams, as a former world champion, he's going to be the one that bucks the trend, in that if he goes to a team that's not performing quite as well as what he's been used to, he can turn that around fairly quickly because he could drive anything, can't he? You know, you could say the same for Alonso, but I think if Max joined a different team after his success at Red Bull even though that's tailing off now with their current car and their current setup would he be the former world champion.

Damien Reid:

That bucks that trend. The difference with Max and pretty much every other world champion that I can see at the moment is that he's not an old bloke. Yeah, exactly, so he can still go in and cast the young guy as a multiple world champion and young, whereas Sebastian Vettel and Flander and Lonzo and all these guys were kind of past it when they moved on.

Paul Velasco:

Listen, but I want to ask a question. This is general knowledge. Again, damo will beat me, but you probably too Rick. Who did actually change teams and won which world champion? I can think of Prost, hamilton, hamilton, yes, ah, yeah, yeah, in our fans Lauda, lauda and not many eh, not, many Not many Not Holt? And how many actually made returns? Schumacher, schumacher, that was one who didn't, it felt. Fernando also did a comeback. Alonso, yeah, yeah.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, very rare. When Hamilton joined Mercedes in 2013, everyone was up in arms. They went what the hell are you doing? This is the biggest gamble of your entire career, because the Mercedes hadn't performed, but Toto Wolff had obviously shown him some data and said listen, this car is going to be like a rocket ship next year. Come and join us, son. And he's gone.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, Okay, but that was a big gamble for Hamilton at the time if remember all the boys hill brundle, the whole gang of of uh pommies, they were like, ah, this is stewart. Was like, oh, this is the worst thing you could do. But uh, yeah, lewis proved them wrong.

Damien Reid:

But that's been lewis's kind of calling card always is that he has proven people wrong and uh, I guess that kind of again draws a parallel to what we're just talking about with max. If he could move, lewis did, but he was. But again, he was a young world champion and he had age on his side, so he had time to invest. He's not like he is at Ferrari going well, I've got two years max because I'm too old. I might even make it through two, might be one year, but he was younger. Okay, let's sign a five-year deal. Let's do this long-term and build the team around me. What Michael did at Ferrari, which was amazing, and Lewis learnt from that. Oh yeah, michael also, mate, he won a Benetton in Ferrari.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, that's right, you know what. We're going to wrap this up first.

Paul Velasco:

No, no, no you're not, you're not. I've got something else to tell you.

Rick Houghton:

Are you bullying me?

Paul Velasco:

No, I'm not. I, yeah, I'm going to actually send him the tape. Ideal, that's for you, bro. You know Rush Rush 2 would be the movie of Nicky walking out of Formula 1, starting an airline, his airplane crashing, killing a whole lot of people. That Boeing blamed it on him. And he went to Boeing and he said hey, boeing, fuck you, this is your mistake, and come, let's fly in the airplane and replicate it. And they said no, it's okay, Nicky, we won't do that, you're right. You remember that court case? Yeah, he won that court case, bro.

Paul Velasco:

He won that court case and then he had no money and then he went to McLaren with Marlborough. Do you remember that?

Damien Reid:

Yeah, absolutely yeah, with a louder air crash and he took it with him.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, he took him to court and the way he won it. He says come, let's go, me and you two guys and the pilots, and we replicate that thing that you say can't happen. And they said, no, that's why we love Nick. I tell you guys, watch Rush. I haven't watched Rush since he died. I've got super emotion. I've got super emotion, yeah.

Rick Houghton:

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant film. Listen, we're going to wrap it up now, whether Paul say so or not.

Paul Velasco:

So let me, let me just ask you guys If I has just shortened the race.

Rick Houghton:

We're talking Hamilton on our Hamilton special. So I'm going to ask both you guys Hamilton still in a Ferrari car at the start of the 2026 season, yes or no?

Damien Reid:

No, I think with the new rules, new regs, the whole thing coming along, it might be just too much of a headache for him and especially with the way things are going right now, he'll take the suitcase with the money and run you.

Paul Velasco:

Right now he'll take the suitcase with the money and run. You know what I can say is the Lewis Hamilton story of Formula One in 50 years' time, even now, if you know anything about Formula One, is one of the most beautiful stories, you know. We have to accept it. But every story has to come to an end and I'm going to go with Damon. I'm actually going to go one step further. I don't think Lewis will survive this season.

Rick Houghton:

No, yeah, interesting points, interesting points. I think I would probably agree with both of you. I think the time has come. It'd be interesting to see what Ferrari, as a team, do.

Damien Reid:

I just want to say very quickly we've all been around motor racing long enough, for decades long enough. The one thing I hope Lewis does is he retires on his terms and not through injury or something worse, because the worst thing I hate seeing is drivers or motorcycle riders who go. I've lost interest and then I'll bail out at the end of next season and then something tragic happens. I do not want to see that. I'd like to see him walk away with 10 fingers and toes. Well said, well said, buddy, well said.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, definitely. Thanks very much for listening to our Lewis Hamilton special here on Two Soft Compounds with our good friend Damo and Paul Velasco, and for getting your latest fix on Formula One whilst we're in the off-season or the summer break. Head over to GrandPrix247.com and we'll speak to you very soon on Two Soft Compounds. Two Soft Compounds was presented by myself, rick Hutton, alongside Paul Velasco. The studio engineer and editor was Roy DeMonte, the executive producer was Ian Carlos, and this podcast is a co-production between Grand Prix 24-7 and W4 Podcast Studio Dubai. Don't forget if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our Instagram page at twosoftcompounds, and if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.