Lewis Hamilton Plays 'Santa' Role for Over 1000 Ferrari Employees

The 2025 Formula 1 season didn’t exactly go according to script for Lewis Hamilton. When the seven-time world champion announced he was leaving his forever home at Mercedes to join the Scuderia, we all pictured a fairytale ending.

We imagined the red suit, the tifosi going wild, and maybe—just maybe—that elusive eighth world title.

Instead? We got a horror show. But in true Sir Lewis fashion, the man has proven he’s pure class, regardless of what the scoreboard says.

Despite enduring what can only be described as a “nightmare” debut season in red, Hamilton has reportedly dropped a serious amount of cash to play Santa Claus for the entire Ferrari workforce. And no, we aren’t just talking about the pit crew.

1. A Season to Forget for Hamilton

To understand why this gesture is so significant, you have to look at the absolute train wreck of a year Hamilton just survived. Expectations were sky-high, but the reality was a P6 finish in the Drivers’ Championship. For a guy used to spraying champagne, scraping together 156 points while his teammate Charles Leclerc bagged 242 is a tough pill to swallow. It wasn’t just about the points, though; it was the vibe. We watched Hamilton suffer three consecutive Q1 exits to end the campaign. We heard the radio messages. At one point in Abu Dhabi, after qualifying 16th, he admitted to feeling “an unbearable amount of anger and rage.” That is not the zen Lewis we’ve come to know. It got so bad that former F1 driver Johnny Herbert started throwing around the “R” word, suggesting Hamilton might even walk away from the sport entirely. The car was a mess—engineers messed up the ride height in Australia, leading to a season-long battle with plank wear and “lift-and-coast” orders that no racer wants to hear. Pierre Gasly even called the Ferrari “so bad” on pure pace.

2. The Ultimate Peace Offering: Hamilton’s Gift

Most drivers in this position might storm off to a private island and ignore their team until pre-season testing. Hamilton, however, went the other way. According to reports, the 40-year-old visited the Maranello factory to personally thank the team for their efforts. And he didn’t come empty-handed. Hamilton reportedly purchased a Christmas gift for every single member of the Scuderia Ferrari team. We are talking about more than 1,000 employees here. The gift of choice? A quintessentially British hamper from Fortnum & Mason. Because nothing says “I still believe in us despite the fact you gave me a tractor to drive” like high-end English breakfast tea and lemon curd cookies. The boxes, which reportedly start around €89, also included tea cookies and Neapolitan chocolates. To top it off, he included a signed photo and a handwritten card reading, “Happy Holidays, From Lewis.” It’s a move that screams leadership. It’s him saying, “We win together, we lose together, and we eat fancy biscuits together.” You know things are rough when even your fiercest rival starts feeling sorry for you. Max Verstappen, who has had his fair share of scraps with Hamilton, admitted it “really hurts” to see the Brit struggling like this. Verstappen noted that Hamilton clearly didn’t feel “secure or comfortable” in the new team dynamic, comparing leaving Mercedes to leaving a “second family.” It’s a rare moment of empathy from the Red Bull camp, but it highlights just how jarring it was to see a legend of the sport fighting in the midfield.

3. Can Hamilton Bounce Back in 2026?

So, where does this leave us? Is Hamilton washed, or was 2025 just a growing pain? Despite the rumors and the “farewell speech” vibes Herbert picked up on, Hamilton is locked in for another two years. The 2026 regulations are looming, and that’s really what Ferrari has been building toward. The struggles of 2025 were primarily due to the team’s efforts to address fundamental flaws in preparation for the new era. Hamilton has said he was surprised by his own resilience this year. If he can survive a season where he’s getting knocked out in Q1 and fighting his own car to keep it on the track, he can survive anything. The tea and cookies might seem like a small gesture, but in the high-stakes, high-ego world of Formula 1, it’s a massive statement. Hamilton isn’t checking out; he’s doubling down. He’s trying to build that Mercedes-style culture at Maranello, one lemon curd cookie at a time. Let’s just hope for his sake that the 2026 car is a little sweeter than the 2025 one.

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