F1 | Ferrari, Hamilton on ground-effect cars: "There's not a single thing I'll miss about these cars."

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on December 7th not only brought the curtain down on the 2025 season, but also marked the end of this regulatory cycle. Starting next year, Formula 1 will be overwhelmed, and at the same time, upended, by regulatory changes that will mark the beginning of a new era.

A new beginning that Lewis Hamilton hopes will begin under the best auspices after the difficulties encountered with ground effect cars, which he particularly suffered in his debut year at Ferrari, where he failed to score any podium finishes driving the SF-25.

The seven-time world champion will therefore be faced with yet another regulatory reset in his career, having faced different technical cycles between McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.

“There's not a single thing I'll miss about these cars,” Hamilton said, quoted by Autosport. The Englishman then, discussing the various regulation changes he's experienced throughout his career, said: “I remember McLaren saying on the first day of 2009 that the rules would reduce downforce by 50%. So they built the car to have 50% downforce. I remember coming back in January and they said, 'We've already achieved our targets,' and I thought, 'Wow, is this normal?' We arrived at the first test and there was no downforce at all, and we were light years away. I learned a lot from that experience.”

The seven-time world champion, continuing his story, added: “Then 2014 was incredibly exciting. Also because I was in a new team and could see the great work that had already been done a few years earlier, especially on the engine. And 2017 was fantastic because it was a bigger, wider car. It just felt more robust and had more downforce. It was great. This generation was probably the worst, I'd say, and I pray the next one isn't even worse.”