Racing
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Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur says Lewis Hamilton’s resurgence in 2026 has come from gradual alignment between driver, team and car rather than any single breakthrough fix.
After a first Ferrari season that ended without a podium, Hamilton has bounced back with five podium finishes, a win in Barcelona and third place in the world championship, 32 points behind Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Vasseur said that rise was built over time as Ferrari better understood Hamilton and Hamilton better understood Ferrari.
“I think it’s coming from both sides,” Vasseur said at Silverstone. “That we know Lewis more, he knows more the team. That we work on the car from the beginning, because he was there when we started the project a long year ago. Small stone after small stone, it’s not that there is a game-changer, it’s not a one single stone, it’s much more aligned today. The car is probably also better than last year, for sure, and step-by-step we are improving.”
Hamilton has described that same process from inside the garage. He said at Silverstone that this year he is driving “a car that I really helped develop,” pointing to a front suspension direction he had asked for last year and the brakes he wanted for 2026. He also said Ferrari changed engineers within his personal crew and reorganized how some people worked with him.
That progress did not come easily after 2025. Hamilton said Ferrari’s results last year made it harder for his feedback to carry authority inside the team, because “when the results are not there, people tend not to listen to you as much.” He said he had to rebuild trust with senior leadership and make sure Ferrari and its new lead driver were working “as allies rather than adversaries.”
According to Hamilton, that relationship is now functioning properly. He said the trust is finally in place and that collaboration is the most important change in Ferrari’s recovery.
Jenson Button, the 2009 world champion and Hamilton’s former McLaren team-mate, believes the car itself remains the biggest factor. Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Show, Button said Ferrari’s current package suits Hamilton’s driving style better, even if settling into a new team and a new engineering relationship also takes time.
“It has to be part of it, but I still think the biggest part of it is just the car,” Button said. “The car suits his style more. It’s a Formula 1 car he’s used to driving in terms of feel. For me, that is way above settling into a team and making them listen.”
Taken together, Ferrari’s explanation and Hamilton’s own account point to the same conclusion: his revival has been built through car development, stronger internal trust and a better technical fit, which has turned a disappointing first year at Maranello into a credible championship push.