Hamilton is facing a crucial 2026 after his worst year in F1
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When Lewis Hamilton posed in front of a Ferrari F40 at Fiorano in January 2025, it felt like the beginning of something historic.
Wearing a long coat and an enigmatic smile, the seven-time world champion had finally arrived at the team that had always seemed his destiny. In Italy, the sense of anticipation was overwhelming.
But one year on, the romance has cooled.
The Ferrari SF-25 was never truly competitive, but it was Hamilton’s performances relative to team-mate Charles Leclerc that most disappointed.
Leclerc outqualified him 23 times to seven, finished the season with seven podiums to Hamilton’s none, and beat him by 86 points in the championship.
“He must climb an Everest this year,” Italian journalist Roberto Boccafogli writes in the latest issue of Motor Sport.
That Everest includes proving that, at 41, he can still define an era rather than simply survive in it.
As Boccafogli puts it, Hamilton was “clearly outclassed by his team-mate” and he notes that this is not an entirely unfamiliar story, with George Russell having beaten him in two of their three seasons together at Mercedes.
Hamilton was been more positive during the pre-season
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The tifosi, who had greeted Hamilton’s arrival with an outpouring of emotion not seen in Italy since F1’s great eras, gradually lost interest.
McLaren dominated and Ferrari struggled, and the question of how Hamilton and Leclerc were getting along was largely forgotten amid more pressing disappointments.
Boccafogli draws a parallel with Nigel Mansell‘s 1995 season at McLaren, when the then-41-year-old found himself outpaced and uncomfortable, and walked away after just two races.
Hamilton turned 41 this year. The comparison is uncomfortable but, Boccafogli argues, not entirely unfair.
But the new 2026 regulations offer a reset, and with them, the possibility of redemption.
The stakes could hardly be higher. Should 2026 fail to bring meaningful improvement, team principal Fred Vasseur’s position could come under pressure, Leclerc’s long-term commitment to the team may waver, and Hamilton — described as potentially “the most fragile mechanism” in such a scenario — would face questions about whether his powers have genuinely declined.
To win back the tifosi, Hamilton does not merely need to be competitive. He needs to be the Hamilton of old: the driver who imposed himself on races, who made things happen, who left opponents and team-mates alike with no answer.
Boccafogli’s full feature appears in the current issue of Motor Sport Magazine.
