Hamilton is ready for redemption
In 2025 Charles Leclerc he rather clearly won the direct comparison in Ferrari with Lewis Hamiltonbut the seven-time world champion took away the satisfaction of winning the Sprint in China, a feat never repeated later in the season by either Leclerc or Hamilton.
The SF-25 revealed itself a car not up to par of the objectives set at the beginning of the season and the hope is that the SF-26 will allow Leclerc and Hamilton to constantly fight for the top step of the podium starting from the inaugural GP scheduled in Melbourne, Australia this weekend.
If the Ferrari SF-26 turned out to be a World Championship car, the Ferrari derby would take on a potentially difficult significance to manage, but Hamilton immediately wanted to cool things down: “How do I think I’m ahead of Leclerc? I don’t see it that way – said Hamilton in an interview given to Corriere della Sera – Ferrari is one thing. In Italy, and outside, people follow it like a religion and love it like the Pope. My goal is not to divide the fanswe both want to win and it’s clear that I would like to be the one to do it and I’m working for this. But the team comes first. Charles is a phenomenal driver for the way he drives, for his ethics, and he has been here for 8 years.”
Hamilton, however, is convinced that he has narrowed or even eliminated the gap with Leclerc in terms of familiarity with the Ferrari world also thanks to a completely new regulation: “I come to this championship in a different way. I’ve been working on the 2026 single-seater for 14 monthson the simulator and with the engineers. Compared to the previous one which I found already designed, and I could change very little, there is a bit of my DNA in this machine and that excites me”.
