{"id":724928,"date":"2026-06-09T10:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T10:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/724928\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T10:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T10:19:11","slug":"hamilton-maiden-ferrari-f1-win-couldnt-be-closer-after-begging-for-changes-which-are-paying-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/724928\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton: Maiden Ferrari F1 win “couldn’t be closer” after “begging” for changes which are paying off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton<\/a> reckons his maiden victory for Ferrari<\/a> \u201ccouldn\u2019t be closer\u201d as the 2026 Formula 1 season has witnessed a rejuvenation from the seven-time world champion.<\/p>\n

The 41-year-old endured a torrid debut campaign for the\u00a0Scuderia in 2025, suffering the first podium-less season of his 18-year career to finish 86 points behind team-mate Charles Leclerc<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hamilton was dejected throughout, even calling for Ferrari to change its driver at one point, but the 2026 regulation switch to nimbler cars was always his chance to return to his best form.<\/p>\n

It marked the first opportunity to develop the car to his liking, having not been involved in the 2025 machine\u2019s development, and make changes to the personnel on his side of the garage like his race engineer.<\/p>\n

As a result, a buoyant Hamilton is now second in the championship after six rounds and is knocking on the door of victory following consecutive runner-up finishes to championship leader\u00a0Kimi Antonelli<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt couldn\u2019t be closer,\u201d said Hamilton after Sunday\u2019s Monaco Grand Prix. The Briton therefore isn\u2019t frustrated by the monumental 66-point gap to his Mercedes<\/a> successor Antonelli, making a record-breaking eighth crown unlikely in 2026.<\/p>\n

\"Lewis <\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari SF26<\/p>\n

Photo by: Erik Junius<\/p>\n

For now, it is all about improvement, and the proof is in the pudding: Hamilton holds a 15-point advantage over\u00a0Leclerc and is 5-4 up in their qualifying head-to-head – including sprints – after losing 23-7 in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe that I\u2019m second in the championship and I\u2019m really happy and thankful for that,\u201d added Hamilton, before crediting team boss Fred Vasseur, who he won the GP2 title with in 2006, for his turnaround.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t have done that without this team, without the reliability that we have, and also with Fred. Fred has been awesome in supporting me. Last year was really tough for both of us and [I\u2019ve been] begging him for certain changes [to his team and car], and he pulled through.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did those and now I\u2019m seeing the fruits of that and I\u2019m able to finally deliver for them. It\u2019s still very early days in the season, so we just have to keep chasing. It\u2019s actually easier to chase than it is to defend, I would say.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, whilst these guys are very quick and they\u2019re an amazing team, we\u2019re going to keep pushing, keep chasing, and I have no doubt at some stage we\u2019re going to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should Hamilton finally enjoy victory again then it would be his first since the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix – he actually crossed the line in second but team-mate George Russell<\/a> was disqualified post-race. Another victory would bring his tally of wins up to 106 across his legendary career.<\/p>\n

\"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Toto Wolff, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bagnall \/ Sutton Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But to do so he needs to pass his former team, which has a perfect record this year, aided by its teen star\u00a0Antonelli whose Monaco victory meant he matched Hamilton\u2019s best career run of five, consecutive race wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cMercedes clearly have been ahead of everybody for quite some time and we couldn’t match them,\u201d Hamilton told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, he did a phenomenal job and I’m so grateful that I get to witness him in his moment and this is his moment. So, I’m really grateful that I could just be up there and get to share and see that.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery, very thankful to my team because coming from such a horrendous year last year, I’m finally in a position where I’m reigniting the passion and belief that they had in me when I first joined.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a really big slump we had last year, to come back up, it’s great to see the fight in them. They’re doing a fantastic job and we’ve got a lot of work to try and close that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton reckons his maiden victory for Ferrari \u201ccouldn\u2019t be closer\u201d as the 2026 Formula 1 season has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,340262,817,826,813,816,351108,823,341288,85],"class_list":["post-724928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-circuit-de-monaco","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-hamilton-maiden-ferrari-f1-win-couldnt-be-closer-after-begging-for-changes-which-are-paying-off","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-monaco-gp","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724928","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=724928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}