The Signs that Lewis Hamilton's Resurgence is Real

Lewis Hamilton is experiencing a resurgence in 2026. Amazingly, despite Mercedes winning every single race so far fairly comfortably and clearly having a dominant car, Lewis currently sits second in the Drivers' Championship. Monaco was a significant weekend because, although he'd previously scored podiums in China and Canada, those are some of his strongest tracks where he's always gone well at. Even though Lewis matched Ayrton Senna for the most podiums around Monaco, I have never considered it one of his better tracks whilst compared to his teammates, despite the results over the years, Monaco is by far Leclerc's strongest tracks in terms of pace. That's what made it so significant that after a strong second place in Canada, Lewis was then able to back it up in Monaco and come out ahead of Leclerc in both qualifying as well as the race. It doesn't mean that he's now a stronger driver than Leclerc or even that he'll beat him over the course of the season, but after the struggles of last year, this is the strongest sign yet that Lewis has made a significant step forward at Ferrari and is coming back to the level of competitiveness that will allow him to consistently be challenging for wins for the rest of the season. Or whilst these 2026 cars have had their detractors, for Lewis, the chassis changes to go back to the classic diffuser and barge boards have instantly raised his qualifying level which was his biggest weakness throughout the ground effect era. Lewis has always been one of the most aggressive drivers on the brakes who likes to then also use sharp steering inputs to extract performance. When he's confident that the car can complement his style, he's able to brake very late and rotate the car through a combination of how he's able to judge getting off the brakes and also by using the front load that he's able to generate using that early corner entry speed. Once he's happy with the rotation, he is then able to carry massive speed through the but not at the cost of scrubbing away speed on the exit that he's gained on the entry. With ground effect cars, that style was incompatible with how those cars needed to be driven. Lewis' style creates big aero migration towards the front into low and medium speed corners and then the exact opposite when the brakes are released and the aero quickly migrates rearwards. The problem is that ground effect required as little disruption to the suspension platform as possible because otherwise it was very easy to separate the underflow airflow and that would cause huge sudden losses in downforce mid-corner. With the 2026 regulations and specifically the SF26, the cars now with the return of brake have more compliant suspension and can easily accept a more variable downforce balance combination. These cars noticeably move around a lot more, especially on corner exit, and that is a combination of having less downforce but also the drivers having more confidence to be able to play about with them and control any instability on corner exit. Lewis is benefiting from almost exactly what Kimi Antonelli is experiencing at Mercedes, as the two of them share very similar driving styles and similar traits in terms of what they need from a car. Although Monaco proved that Mercedes still has by far the best overall package, the Ferrari is very strong in low speed handling, it has amazing mid-corner adjustability and it has been much more responsive to the steering and braking demands that Lewis has. And now it's also important to not get too carried away because the reality is that whilst Ferrari have made a good start, they are being made to look better than they actually are due to their superior reliability and also just Lewis maximising their package over the past couple of weekends. If we take a look at the last two races and ignore Mercedes, in Canada both of the McLarens outqualified the Ferraris and had it not been for their strategical blunder, along with Lando's gearbox failure, it is very likely that Ferrari wouldn't have been anywhere near that podium. In Monaco it was Red Bull who looked very strong with both of their drivers, but again reliability played a massive part, with Hajar suffering with deployment issues and Max not even being able to start from P2. As the season goes on these teams are going to get on top of these reliability issues and once they do if Ferrari aren't able to develop, then they won't be able to capitalise and look better than they are like they have so far. One of the other major changes that Lewis has made has been his race engineer, going from Riccardo Adami last year to Carlo Santi this year. When I did a critical video about Lewis at the start of the year, I specifically talked about the Adami situation and how to me, it was completely unsustainable and how I was sure that at some point, Adami was going to be moved. I get that it was only one year, but their communication was just as bad in race 1 in Australia as it was in race 24 in Abu Dhabi. Hamilton and Adami were incompatible and ironically 5 days after I posted that video, it was announced that Adami was no longer going to be Hamilton's race engineer. Lewis pushed very hard to get a lot of changes done behind the scenes on the engineering front, which isn't easy if people aren't buying into your philosophy. In Santi he said he feels like he's found his Italian Bono and he also gave a lot of credit to Fred Vasseur for trusting him and helping him to reshuffle the engineering team. Fred has been great, working with me and helping me for example with engineers. The engineer setup is a million times better than it was last year. I'm starting to see the fruits of that through driving the car. The engineering side is something that's very difficult for us fans to fully understand in terms of how that tangibly correlates to faster lap time, but it's all about mental comfort and the ability of the team to effectively take pressure off your shoulders through good decision making and good communication. The team is there to help take pressure off your shoulders and to lessen your workload in the car so that you can focus fully on the racing. The best example of this has been the Max and GP combination and more recently Bono and Kimi, with Bono being incredible at keeping Kimi calm, reassuring him when there's potential for mistakes to happen and guiding him through difficult situations. Ferrari is notorious for being a team which strategically can be chaotic at times. If you then can't effectively communicate with your driver on top of that, it only adds to the pressure that's on the driver's shoulders and it only increases the chances for mistakes to happen. One thing that is undeniable is that Lewis behind the scenes was pushing the team very hard and that can't be easy because he was pushing the team during a period in 2025 where he was struggling. Even as a seven-time champion, when you want to make internal changes from a position of weakness during a season in which you're struggling, that can't be easy because people from the outside will say that you're simply blaming your failures on other people and people internally might not buy into what you're trying to do. Or one person that has been critical to this process is Fred Vasseur. Fred is the lynchpin at Ferrari and it's clear that the drivers feel that as well. When Leclerc signed his contract extension, the reason he gave was because he believed in Fred and when Lewis talked about having to push changes through the team to help him, yet again it was Fred who made it happen. I can't believe that I'm second in the championship and I'm really great, really happy and thankful for that and I couldn't have done that without this team, without the reliability that we have. And also with Fred, you know, Fred has been awesome in supporting me. I think last year was really really tough for both of us and begging him for certain changes and he pulled through and he did those and now I'm seeing the fruits of that and I'm able to finally deliver Although Lewis didn't specify what changes Fred was able to force through, you can tell in his tone that internally it didn't come easy or without people pushing back. Now I think it's important to remember that Lewis has been a part of two separate championship winning organisations and it's not as if he has stepped into a winning Ferrari organisation where everything is perfect and that's been winning titles. Ferrari hasn't won a title in 20 years. One change that I do think we can deduce that has been made is in the brakes. The brakes are a major point of confidence especially for a driver like Lewis and this was a big talking point last year as something that Lewis was struggling to adapt to in the 2025 car because whilst Lewis had spent his entire career at McLaren and Mercedes using pads and discs from carbon industry, Ferrari historically have used Brembo brakes going back to 1975. And now what is important to stress is that when comparing the two, it isn't a case of one is faster than the other. It is all about feel, it is all about preference and it's all about the specific braking characteristics that the two different brake suppliers give the drivers. Generally speaking, carbon industry brakes have a very strong initial bite when they are hot which is perfect for that initial heavy braking phase that Lewis likes, whilst Brembo has a much more consistent and progressive feel throughout a wider range of temperatures. Ferrari's long standing relationship with Brembo which includes massive commercial implications as well clearly was an issue last year when Lewis was critical about the brakes. The compromise for this year which I think is fair to assume Fred was able to deliver on is that since the Japanese Grand Prix it's been reported that on Lewis' car, although the majority of the components including the calipers are still Brembo, Lewis has been allowed to switch to carbon industry discs. And now the 2026 engine wrecks which have increased electrification have had a big impact on how the drivers use their brakes. It's why throughout testing we saw more lockups than ever before and it's why in Monaco, even at slow speed the drivers were struggling to stop their cars because they were having to manage the harvesting as well as running in lower gears to keep their turbos spooled which again requires them to use brakes in a way that they didn't have to before. For this reason and after a very disappointing Monaco Grand Prix, Leclerc from Barcelona onwards has also chosen to switch to Hamilton's configuration and use carbon industry discs in a bid to improve his braking feel. The point is that all of these changes whether it be on the engineering side, pushing the car development in a certain direction or even fighting to use different brakes, it might lead to winning races and maybe even a title or it might not. But what is important is that Lewis has given it his full focus to push the team in a positive direction and he has been trusted and empowered by Fred to do so. He didn't just go there to enjoy the money, enjoy driving in red and take a few Instagram pictures. He went there to genuinely try and make Ferrari more successful and the only way to do that like with all great drivers is by having high standards, by being intense and being pushy internally if you feel like there's areas that need to be improved. At the very least regardless of how 2026 and 2027 will go, he can leave at the end of his time at Ferrari knowing that he left no stone unturned, he left nothing on the table in trying to turn Ferrari around. Well there you have it, if you did enjoy this video and want to support the channel then don't forget to subscribe that would be massively appreciated and I'll see you in the next one.