Charles Leclerc<\/a> as Ferrari underwhelmed.<\/p>\nBut Hamilton has made it clear that he remains focused on his goal of winning a record eighth world title and ending Ferrari\u2019s F1 title drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is to win. That\u2019s what we\u2019re working towards,\u201d Hamilton said in Thursday\u2019s FIA drivers\u2019 press conference in Melbourne ahead of this weekend\u2019s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
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\u201cEvery team is, but that\u2019s our goal: to maximise on every opportunity, to be hopefully fighting in the top group, hopefully in the first races.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t really know. Mercedes looked particularly quick, and I\u2019m not really sure whether we\u2019ve seen the full, unleashed Red Bull yet, so it\u2019s really, really exciting.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut whatever the case, I feel like I\u2019ve got a great group of people behind me who are head down focused on bringing performance and really maximising every weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton and Ferrari arrive in Melbourne off the back of a very positive pre-season, having enjoyed strong reliability and mileage, while also topping the timesheet in both Barcelona and Bahrain.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got great mileage done in winter testing. An amazing amount of work has been done from the team back at the factory, but also delivering on those tests, and we\u2019ve learned a lot from last year,\u201d Hamilton added.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re leaving behind the bad and moving forwards with the good. We\u2019re sharp, prepared, and we know what we need to do. We also know there are massive challenges for all of us with the new rules and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite still not having a permanent race engineer in place after Riccardo Adami was moved into a new role in January, Hamilton insisted he feels much better placed going into his second Ferrari season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s massively different to the first year and a much nicer feeling, having spent a year at the team, understanding the culture, understanding ways, finding ways of working together,\u201d the Briton explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re in a good place now together as a team, and I feel very gelled with the team today. So yeah, much happier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s winter of soul-searching and \u2018rediscovery\u2019 ![\"Hamilton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/xpb_1397807_hires.jpg\")
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Hamilton is reset and refreshed after the winter<\/p>\n
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Hamilton ended a bruising 2025 visibly deflated and appearing defeated, having made a series of negative comments about his lacklustre performances over the course of the season.<\/p>\n
Such remarks led to questions over Hamilton\u2019s future in F1, but the 41-year-old has emerged from the winter break refreshed and re-energised with a notable shift in his tone and outlook.<\/p>\n
Asked where his positivity had come from, Hamilton replied: \u201cA combination of things. The break was really positive. It was my surroundings, it was the people that I was with. It\u2019s not my first rodeo, so it\u2019s understanding how to flip things.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that easy to do each time, but I always talk about cultivating a positive mental attitude and that\u2019s what I focus on in my winter. A lot of it came from training. I was training hard from Christmas Day.<\/p>\n
“Also, knowing that I believe in myself, that I\u2019ve put more work in than anyone around me, and I believe in myself.<\/p>\n
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\u201cRediscovering myself was a big part of it as well. As I said in one of my posts, I kind of lost sight for a second of who I was, and that person\u2019s gone, so you won\u2019t see that person again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton described his period of soul-searching as an important moment in his life as he looks to get back on track in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was just something that built up over a period of time,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s normal. Lots of people have that at some point through their lives, and it\u2019s important that you pick yourself back up and you evaluate where you\u2019ve been and, as I said, come back with that positive mental frame of mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel great arriving here. Training has been fantastic. The work with the team has been amazing. Changes within my own personal space, and in how I interact with the team, how the team is working, is so much smoother than it was last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton has vowed that his \u201cgoal is to win\u201d as he embarks on his second Formula 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,826,823,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-520794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}