Lewis Hamilton has lifted the lid on the neck injury he suffered in a crash during one of his first tests with Ferrari ahead of the F1 2025 season.
It comes after the seven-time world champion revealed after his first victory for Ferrari that he struggled with injury “for months” last year.
Lewis Hamilton opens up on Ferrari 2025 test crash
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Hamilton crashed heavily during his second on-track outing with Ferrari in 2025 following his high-profile move from Mercedes.
After his maiden test at Fiorano on January 20, Ferrari’s pre-season preparations moved to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for a TPC (Testing of Previous Car) outing with the team’s 2023 chassis.
Hamilton suffered an accident at the high-speed final section of the lap on January 29, with repairs to the car causing delays to Ferrari’s test programme.
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The seven-time world champion went on to experience the most challenging season of his career in 2025, failing to register a podium finish across a campaign for the first time.
Hamilton returned to Barcelona to secure a record-extending 106th career victory earlier this month, ending his two-year winless streak in the process.
Speaking to PlanetF1.com and other media outlets in the post-race press conference in Spain, Hamilton revealed that he carried the injury sustained in his 2025 testing crash “for months” afterwards.
Pressed on the nature of the incident ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, Hamilton revealed that a slipped disc in his neck left him struggling for nine weeks in the aftermath of his accident.
He told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets at the Red Bull Ring: “I hit the wall very hard last year in testing, knocked out one of the discs in my neck, protruded into the nerve.
“Couldn’t do a lot for nine weeks. I was just having chiropractors every day, physio every day, I couldn’t sleep, I was on painkillers, I had to get injections.
“I did everything I could to try to fix it.
“That’s what I was basically trying to live with. It’s not easy in the seat position that you’re sitting in.”
If Hamilton’s nine-week timeline is accurate, he would have struggled most with the injury across his first two race weekends as a Ferrari driver in early 2025.
His Ferrari debut in Australia saw Hamilton qualify two tenths behind teammate Charles Leclerc in Australia, with the British driver slipping to 10th in a rain-affected race.
It is believed the Australian Grand Prix weekend alerted Ferrari to a fundamental issue with the SF-25’s car ride height, which forced the team to run the car in a compromised state at the cost of performance.
A week later, Hamilton won the sprint race in China from pole position in what would remain the highlight of his first season in red.
However, he found himself disqualified from the main race the following day for excessive plank wear, a breach related to the team’s ride-height problem.
Hamilton’s disqualification came after he struggled for pace during the race in Shanghai, with Leclerc faster than his illustrious teammate despite suffering a broken front wing.
Leclerc was also disqualified from the race in China after his car was found to be underweight during post-race checks.
The neck, crucial to inner-ear balance, is among the most important parts of a racing driver’s body, with drivers training to strengthen their necks to cope with the high G-forces.
Michael Schumacher, the only other seven-time world champion in F1 history, memorably suffered an injury to his neck in a 130mph accident in a minor motorcycling race in February 2009.
It was claimed at the time by his physician, Dr Johannes Peil, that the injury sustained by Schumacher would result in death in 90 per cent of cases, with the strength of F1 legend’s neck saving him from serious harm.
The injury prevented Schumacher from returning to F1 later that year after Felipe Massa’s accident at the Hungarian Grand Prix forced Ferrari to seek a replacement for the second half of the season.
Some believe that the lasting effects of Schumacher’s neck injury was a major factor behind his underwhelming Formula 1 comeback with Mercedes between 2010 and 2012, which saw him restricted to just a single podium finish in three seasons.
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
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