‘Back to my best’: Why Hamilton thinks wins are close in his critical second Ferrari season

Lewis Hamilton is statistically the greatest driver of all time, with more poles, wins and podiums than any other driver.

But podium 203, his most recent, might be his most important statistic.

It was his first step onto a grand prix rostrum dressed in Ferrari scarlet.

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It took him 26 attempts, many of which were somewhere between underwhelming and soul-crushing. His difficult 2025 season at times appeared to have the seven-time champion questioning his own abilities and doubting whether he was the right man for the job.

Standing on the podium in Shanghai, though, all those worries had evaporated.

“I’ve been pushing for a podium,” he said. “It’s the hardest thing just to get a podium compared to a lot through my career, and it was the biggest challenge to get that, and I just had to bide my time.

“After a difficult year last year, to be able to be a part of developing with them, working with them over the past year, gives me huge pride, and it’s such a privilege to be a part of this brand.

“It’s a very special day.”

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Before China, Hamilton had held the unwanted record of having started the most races for Ferrari without scoring a podium. Third place in Shanghai converted that record into the longest wait for a podium in Ferrari history, eclipsing Didier Pironi, who claimed a trophy in his 19th race for the team.

Pironi’s first podium — a win at the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix — came early in his second Ferrari season. No driver who scored a podium with Ferrari had to wait longer than a year.

“I started this voyage and this dream of moving to Ferrari and being on the top step with them, and this podium has taken longer than I had hoped,” Hamilton said.

The next step of the journey — the next step towards victories and perhaps the title — begins now.

FRESH START

Hamilton’s turnaround from 2025 has only just begun, but already the difference is stark.

You don’t have to work hard to read Hamilton’s emotions. He wears his heart on his sleeve.

Gone is last year’s gloominess, the perpetual pessimism that became so heavy that he willed last season to end.

Returned is the buoyancy indicative of the Briton enjoying his craft again.

“I think I came into the season with the confidence that I used to have, and I think I’ve stuck at it,” he said.

“Coming into the season, I really cultivated that really positive mental attitude and I’m taking that forward with me.”

It’s showing in his results — or, rather, his results are powering his emotional rebound.

Of course the sample size isn’t large, but after two grands prix, Hamilton and Leclerc are separated by only 0.07 seconds on average in qualifying, having started ahead of each other once apiece. They’ve beaten each other once apiece too, swapping between third and fourth in Australia and China.

While it’s inexact given race circumstances, Hamilton has been at least as quick as Leclerc when analysing their race pace over the last two Sundays.

It’s much closer to what had been expected of him upon joining Ferrari last season.

“I definitely feel like I’m back to my best, both mentally and physically,” Hamilton said. “[And] I still think there’s room to improve.

“Training this winter has been the heaviest and the most intense that I’ve ever had, and that probably comes hand-in-hand with being older — it takes longer to recover — but I’ve managed to pull these new tools together.

“Then the time at the factory, obviously new engineer, and that’s obviously been a real good boost as well. Great morale within the team.

“I just decided on Christmas Day how I was going to start this season. I decided what I was going to do mentally and I’m going to continue to tweak that. I do think there’s more to come.

“I think I can still eke out more performance from this car. I’m still learning about it as I go.”

FRESH CAR

Of course if elite-level performance were as simple as having a positive mindset, then Hamilton would never have found himself in the depths he did last year.

Something material has changed in the way he’s working with Ferrari.

There are two elements to this.

One was always out of his and the team’s hands: the regulations.

Hamilton’s driving style was never a match for the ground-effect era. Part of the secret to the seven-time champion’s speed is his late-braking technique, which loads up the front axle to let the rear begin to rotate into the corner while still in the entry phase.

It was incompatible with the way a ground-effect car needed to be driven. The super-stiff suspension set-up — designed to keep the car low and level — wouldn’t accept being loaded up in the same way.

“There’s not a single thing I’ll miss about these cars,” he said at the end of last season. “This generation was probably the worst one, I would say.”

The 2026 rules abandon ground-effect aerodynamics in favour of a philosophy much more reminiscent of the preceding generation — what could be considered a more conventional modern Formula 1 car.

Suddenly Hamilton is able to express himself behind the wheel again.

But there is a second critical element to this. Capitalising on the new rules and using his status as a Ferrari incumbent, the 2026 car has been designed with his input.

“Mid to end of last year [I was] digging deep with the engineers and talking to them about the things that I wanted from a car that I didn’t have any part of developing last year to then develop the car with them this year,” he said.

“To see them listen and put some of those things that I’d asked for on the car, I’m incredibly grateful to them for listening on that side of things.

“It just makes you feel more united with everyone because you’re moving in the same direction.”

Combined with his input on reorganising the team and its processes appearing to have been taken on board — he’s at least getting a new permanent race engineer later this season — and Hamilton is looking at home in Maranello.

FRESH ENGINE?

After last year’s season of torment, Hamilton is optimistic race wins are in his future again.

“It’s more in sight than ever before,” he said. “Last year it couldn’t have been further from view.”

But he admitted that Mercedes is setting a high bar to clear for race victories, having swept both grands prix and one sprint easily.

“In the race trim I think [Mercedes] have got 0.4 of 0.5 seconds on us at the moment. That’s a huge step to pick up, both in downforce and efficiency and also power,” he said. “That’s a huge upgrade that we need to push for.

“But I really do believe in everyone back in Maranello and that it’s not an impossible feat.

“We’ve just got to keep pushing.”

But simply saying Mercedes is faster isn’t enough to describe what’s happening at the front of the field.

In Shanghai, for example, Ferrari was in the ballpark in the opening two sectors, which comprise most of the circuit’s corners. It was only really in the final sector, dominated by the long back straight, that Ferrari’s deficit blew out to almost 0.4 seconds in qualifying.

Ferrari appears to have the best aerodynamic package on the grid, but Mercedes’s power unit is effective enough to overcome that advantage.

“These guys are pulling past us at crazy speeds,” Hamilton said.

“Given that they’ve gone for a different option where they have more power, we’ve got to figure out how we can improve our straight-line speed.”

Power unit performance is decisive to lap time this year in a way it’s never been before.

The combustion engine charges the battery at various points around the lap, particularly at the end of the straights and through fast corners. The more the battery is charged, the faster the car is down the straights. The faster the car is down the straights, the more it can divert combustion power to the battery.

The process becomes a virtuous cycle such that any gain in engine performance can exponentially increase overall car performance.

The problem for Ferrari — and for every other engine manufacturer — is that engine development is banned during the season.

The only exception is if the FIA deems an engine to be more than 2 per cent off the pace, in which case one in-season upgrade is permitted this year. Two upgrades are allowed for engines that are 4 per cent behind the benchmark.

Ferrari on average has been only 0.87 per cent slower than Mercedes in qualifying so far this year, and in grand prix qualifying in China that margin was just 0.38 per cent.

That’s why it’s so interesting that team boss Fred Vasseur said he would be in line for at least once upgrade this year.

“I would prefer to be a bit faster,” he said, per The Race. “We know that we have a deficit of performance mainly in the straight line that we have to work on.”

“[We] will have the ADUO [additional design and upgrade opportunities] at one stage, and the addition of the ADUO will be an opportunity for us to close the gap.”

The FIA’s ADUO metric measures engine performance independent of the chassis, but the formula it uses is secret.

But if Vasseur is right and Ferrari’s engine will qualify for at least one upgrade this year, it raises some fascinating questions about the relative qualities of Ferrari and Mercedes’s cars — and about what the form guide might look like if the Italian manufacturer were able to zero the gap with one upgrade.

FRESH STATISTICS

ADUO assessments were to be made once every six rounds — once per quarter — but the governing body is reportedly considering how to realign those deadlines after Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were dropped from the schedule. Whatever the case, it won’t be instant, with an upgrade likely months away.

But Ferrari is still close enough to be in the ballpark for victory.

The tighter and twistier the track, the more Ferrari’s advantages come to the fore and the less Mercedes’s strengths can be exploited.

Monaco, for example, is surely circled in the team’s calendar.

It means that regardless of whether this becomes a season featuring multiple wins and even a title tilt, Hamilton can still pursue that elusive first victory for Ferrari.

With 26 rounds already under his belt, only three drivers have waited longer than Hamilton for their first red win: Jean Alesi, who won his 68th race in his fifth season; Eddie Irvine, who won his 50th race in his fourth season; and Carlos Sainz, who won his 32nd races in his second season.

Hamilton will start his 32nd race for Ferrari at the Austrian Grand Prix later this year.

But there’s of course a chance that Hamilton and Ferrari can’t pull it off. Of the 71 drivers who have started at least one grand prix for Maranello, 30 left without winning a race in red — and only two of them started more races for the team than Hamilton has: Stefan Johansson, who started 31 grands prix in 1985–86; and Chris Amon, who started 27 grands prix in 1967–69.

The common thread between them — and between them and Hamilton — is that they raced in red during an uncompetitive Ferrari era.

Ferrari won just two races during Johansson’s time, and the team claimed just one victory during Amon’s tenure.

The Ferrari of Hamilton’s era is yet to win a race at all.

Though they already own almost every meaningful stat in the record book, Hamilton and Ferrari’s next victory is their statistical final frontier.