Lewis Hamilton and the Rebirth of Ferrari
Image credit: Ferrari Formula 1 Media Gallery
There are moments in our lives that when we experience them for the first time, we receive an innate feeling that we are going to remember them for the rest of our lives. The same is true in sport. At this year’s Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, we collected another of these as everyone who was either present trackside or watched from around the globe witnessed Lewis Hamilton win his first Grand Prix for Ferrari.
Fans, commentators and competitors have been quietly expecting it ever since the seven-time World Champion announced his move to the Scuderia at the start of 2024. While the wait for it has been much longer than most would have expected, the momentum building towards it has been thick in the air since the start of the season. Hamilton’s fourth place finish in Australia instantly equalled his best result of last season and teased what was to come. A podium in the Sprint Race in China came next which he immediately followed up with a Grand Prix podium - his first for Ferrari. Solid top ten finishes in Japan and Miami were then bettered by a return to the podium in Canada where this time, Hamilton finished one step higher up in second. In Monaco, he repeated that feat and the world held its breath as the impending certainty of a Lewis Hamilton victory at Ferrari now seemed inevitable in 2026. But where would it materialize?
Image credit: Red Bull Content Pool
It had been 686 days since Lewis Hamilton had last won a Grand Prix. On that occasion, it was the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix and the British driver had still been driving for Mercedes. When Hamilton proceeded to qualify on the front row in second place alongside his former teammate George Russell in Spain, it felt like his and the team’s best chance yet to spoil Mercedes’ dominant run of six consecutive Grand Prix victories. Ferrari themselves hadn’t won a Grand Prix since Formula 1 visited Mexico City in 2024. Then, it was Carlos Sainz who took victory for them - the driver they ousted in favour of Lewis Hamilton and who had stood on the podium multiple times since for Williams before Hamilton had even got there.
“The question is do they have the car? We have the driver.”
All of the pain, difficulty, frustration, tension and disappointment that had been endured for so long would now be washed away. Hamilton and Ferrari executed an ambitious three pit stop strategy as they attempted to take on the might of both Mercedes drivers with only a sole car in the mix.
Not once in the Grand Prix did either Hamilton or Ferrari look under pressure. Instead, they presented a confident and united front as they worked together seamlessly. They took advantage of the opportunities that came their way (principally the Virtual Safety Car caused by Fernando Alonso’s retirement from the race) but at no point did it look like they needed the extra help. Hamilton appeared at one with the car, his (new for this season) race engineer Carlo Santi and with the team. As a result, Hamilton put on a display reminiscent of his days of domination at Mercedes - who, ironically, didn’t have an answer for how to even take the fight to him, let alone beat him. Hamilton won the race by 19.561 seconds in what is the biggest winning margin of the year so far and the largest winning margin since Max Verstappen won the Las Vegas Grand Prix last year.
Image credit: Ferrari Formula 1 Media Gallery
In his thirty-first start for the Prancing Horse, Lewis Hamilton put in a masterclass performance that simultaneously rewarded his fans, supporters and the entire Ferrari team while also quieting all the doubters and naysayers who would tell anyone who would listen that he was past it and would never win again.
“A legend formed in silver resumes in red.”
Coming out of last weekend, Hamilton is now the only driver to have scored points at every single race weekend so far this season, having finished in the top seven in every Sprint Race and Grand Prix. He is now forty-one points away from Kimi Antonelli at the top of the Championship and looks comfortably in an era of resurgence. While his other results from the season so far have indicated a return to form for the World Champion, this display in Barcelona alone should both impress and scare his rivals in equal measure.
The statistics back this up ten fold. The Spanish Grand Prix became Hamilton’s 106th victory in Formula 1 as he raised the bar again for those in the future to try and better. It was his seventh win at the venue, besting Michael Schumacher’s previously held record of six. Fittingly, it was at this same circuit that Michael Schumacher first won with Ferrari in 1996. Given what came next for Schumacher and Ferrari, Hamilton’s adversaries will be hoping that’s where the emulation ends.
Hamilton also echoed another storied name from Ferrari’s past - Juan Manuel Fangio - as he became only the second driver after the Argentine to win a Grand Prix for both Mercedes and Ferrari. Fangio achieved this in 1956 on his way to his fourth World Championship - his first with Ferrari.
What’s more is that Hamilton is now the sixteenth driver to win with a third different Constructor and the first since Sebastian Vettel back in 2015 when he too won for Ferrari. If that wasn’t enough to stagger you, Lewis added another accolade to his name as he became the oldest driver to win a Grand Prix since Jack Brabham. Brabham was 44 years, 11 months and 5 days old when he won the 1970 South African Grand Prix.
These are just the facts and figures Hamilton can produce from a single Grand Prix weekend - nevermind the rest of his career to date.
“This moment is so special. To do it in the way he did it, with Ferrari, at the age he is...I feel a sense of relief because we can now celebrate Lewis again.”
Image credit: Mercedes F1 Media Centre
The prospect of an eighth World Championship for Lewis Hamilton, his first with Ferrari, and their first since 2007, now plays daringly on the minds of many but there remains a long way to go before we can dare to believe that as a viable possibility. Mercedes are still dominant with two fierce drivers in their roster. Ferrari don’t have a perfect car either as displayed by Charles Leclerc’s unfortunate hydraulic system failure towards the end of the Grand Prix. What can be taken away from last weekend though is that Ferrari are in the hunt and they have two drivers in their own stable more than capable of delivering for the team each and every weekend. After a period of hardship, Lewis Hamilton has returned to the fore, taken on those at the top who he achieved so much with and beaten them. He’s tasted victory and in doing so, put an end to a historic run of victories from the driver twenty-two years younger who replaced him at Mercedes.
“I have the right team around me, and I have the right car around me, and now, I can do what I do best.”
That single sentence alone tells you everything you need to know about what to expect moving forwards. Many people around the world are saying that Lewis Hamilton is back and by extension, so too is Ferrari. But they’re wrong. He never left. Resilient, rejuvenated and resplendent in red, Hamilton, with the help of the fans he thanked on Sunday and dedicated the win to, and Ferrari, have simply remembered who they are and are now on the next step of their journey to remind everyone else.
What a deliciously terrifying prospect.