Hamilton has endured a mixed start to his Ferrari career following his lucrative move from Mercedes over the winter, finishing a disappointing 10th on his debut in Australia.

Davide Valsecchi: Lewis Hamilton has had ‘low performance’ for three years

The 40-year-old converted pole position into victory in the sprint race in China last weekend, collecting just his third win of any kind since the start of the 2022 season.

However, Hamilton struggled for pace over the course of the main race in Shanghai before both he and team-mate Charles Leclerc were disqualified for separate offences.

Hamilton was excluded from the official results for excessive skid-block wear for the second time in the last 18 months, having suffered the same fate in his penultimate season with Mercedes at the 2023 United States Grand Prix.

Despite their stuttering start on track in F1 2025, Hamilton’s partnership with Ferrari has already proven a commercial hit with kit partner Puma recently reporting an eightfold increase in sales since the seven-time World Champion arrived at Maranello.

Valsecchi followed in Hamilton’s footsteps by winning the prestigious F2 (then GP2) feeder series in 2012 before emerging as a popular television pundit in Italy.

The former Lotus reserve driver believes Hamilton no longer comes with the guarantee of performance, unlike reigning four-time World Champion Max Verstappen, having underwhelmed for the last three years.

And he believes the seven-time World Champion will find Leclerc too hot to handle even if he’s just 0.2 seconds slower than his peak.

Asked if Ferrari were wrong to sign Hamilton, Valsecchi told Italy’s Corriere della Sera: “It would be stupid to say that.

“In testing he was flying and then he showed up like a star. Without him you wouldn’t have had all this return on image. At Maranello, they have already won [financially].

“Of course, with Verstappen you would have had number one on the track. With Lewis you don’t.

“He’s fast in the wet, he doesn’t wreck as many cars, he’s reliable – but for three years he’s had a low performance.

“At 40 you can’t be like you were at 25. If you’ve lost even two tenths of a ceiling, you’re not ahead of Charles.”

Ferrari remain without a World Championship of any kind since 2008, the year of Hamilton’s first Drivers’ title with McLaren.

Hamilton has made no secret of his desire to land a record eighth crown with Ferrari, having been denied the achievement in highly controversial circumstances at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Asked if he would prefer his beloved Inter Milan to win football’s Champions League or Ferrari to become F1 Champions again, Valsecchi sided with the latter – but only in the event of a Leclerc triumph.

He said: “The red, but only if Leclerc wins.”

Valsecchi’s comments come after Jeremy Clarkson, the celebrity F1 fan and television presenter, questioned the motive behind Hamilton’s move to Ferrari over the winter.

Clarkson posed a theory that Hamilton knows his best days are behind him after his recent struggles with Mercedes, claiming the 40-year-old could not bring himself to walk away from F1 before tasting life at Ferrari.

He said: “What is Lewis now? A driver? Or a superstar?

“What I do know is he’ll have his work cut out to beat his team-mate Charles Leclerc, who speaks Italian, knows the team, doesn’t spend quite so long posing for pictures and, thanks to a single-lap shootout, is regarded by many to be the fastest driver of them all.

“Maybe Lewis is aware of this.

“And maybe he signed for Ferrari for a different reason – he knows he’s past his prime now and he didn’t want to retire having never driven for motorsport’s crown jewel.

“Either way, I wish him well.”