Lewis Hamilton reveals timeline for BRUTAL Ferrari judgement

Lewis Hamilton has urged fans to cool down on making judgements about his Ferrari career, begging for a much longer runway from them.

The British driver has had a rocky start to his dream team-up with the Italian F1 team, failing to finish on the podium in a grand prix as he approaches double-digit races since his move from Mercedes.

Hamilton spoke out about the early judgements before the recent triple-header of European races, where Ferrari were hoping to claw back some ground on their rivals, insisting that he wouldn’t ‘put it all on’ that trio of races.

Hamilton Ferrari spell has shades of fellow legend

It might’ve been good foresight on Hamilton’s part to play down the importance of the triple-header, as his podium-free run continued – and team-mate Charles Leclerc increased the gap between the pair in the drivers’ championship standings with back-to-back podiums in Monaco and Spain.

Sebastian Vettel was a year removed from the fourth of his four consecutive titles when he headed to Italy in 2015, finishing third in the championship that year and twice finishing as championship runner-up behind, yep, Hamilton.

In each driver’s case, there was a dominant team that Ferrari were institutionally a little short of challenging. In Vettel’s case that team was Mercedes, while for Hamilton it’s McLaren (and okay, they’re not ‘a little short’ right now either).

Despite Vettel challenging for the title twice, and outperforming his team-mate in each of his first four seasons, there’s still heated debate over whether his time with the most famous team in F1 was a modest success or, ultimately, a disappointment. You come to Ferrari to win titles. You hire a four-time world champion to win titles. They failed to do that.

Hamilton looks on course to have a similar legacy with the team, if not a less sparkling one. ‘Judge me after a few years here’. Okay. But unless he starts at least beating his team-mate, that judgement won’t be kind when it arrives.