Lewis Hamilton said his back-to-back podiums with Ferrari are \u201cjust the beginning\u201d after he praised his team for returning to the fold as \u201cinnovators\u201d in Formula 1.<\/p>\n
After two second place finishes in Canada and Monaco, Hamilton is second in the drivers\u2019 championship and 66 points behind runaway leader Kimi Antonelli.<\/p>\n
Hamilton joined Ferrari from Mercedes at the start of last year, but endured a difficult debut season with the Italian team without a single grand prix victory or podium.<\/p>\n
He believes the upturn in form at the start of this year is proof that Ferrari, which has not won an F1 title since 2008, is now on the right path.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just the beginning really for us as a team,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cI\u2019ve come from a difficult year [in 2025] and seen changes into this season which is really positive and I think we\u2019re moving in the right direction, but this is not it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got more to come, we\u2019ve got more improvements to make. I think we exist to win, and I don\u2019t think we don\u2019t exist to win by default [if another team fails].<\/p>\n
\u201cWe exist to win through pure performance and earning it and that\u2019s what we\u2019re working towards.\u201d<\/p>\n
– Can George Russell bounce back after Monaco struggles?- Lewis Hamilton hails Kimi Antonelli after fifth straight win in Monaco: \u2018You\u2019re catching up\u2019- F1 agree change to controversial engine rules after drivers\u2019 complaints<\/p>\n
Hamilton said it took time for his ideas to filter on to the car after struggling with certain aspects of the 2025 Ferrari.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I went from a season in a car that I inherited that had no input to, to a car that I\u2019ve had input to,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s elements of the car that I\u2019d asked for and the team listened and which has been great. Collaboration of many, many, many different elements all coming together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith a Formula 1 car it\u2019s very complex, it\u2019s not one thing that changes everything. It\u2019s a combination of many things, moving parts coming together and working together in synergy and I think we are finally, I think in a place where we\u2019re working really, really well as a team collectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Ferrari has been off the pace of championship leaders Mercedes this season, it is second in the constructors\u2019 standings ahead of reigning champions McLaren.<\/p>\n
Hamilton said he was encouraged by the innovation he has seen on the Ferrari this year and praised team principal Fred Vasseur for helping enact change.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in a scenario where you know what\u2019s needed to improve and you shout it from the top of the mountain and it doesn\u2019t get done necessarily because it can\u2019t be done immediately or it takes months to develop or it can\u2019t happen until the next year because of the regulations or whatever it may be, it\u2019s like banging your head against the wall and it\u2019s tough,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example last year, one of the things I was like, \u2018where is our innovation?\u2019 Ferrari should be the innovators, they should be the ones that all the teams are trying to copy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year you see us arrive with innovating things that other people have followed and there is a lot more innovation coming, which is really exciting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think probably the fact that I\u2019m now starting to see some of those things happen and Fred [Vasseur] has really been great with working with me and helping make certain changes that I\u2019ve wanted and that just kind of releases you to get up and do what you do best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton said his back-to-back podiums with Ferrari are \u201cjust the beginning\u201d after he praised his team for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,86971,576,577,147905,82],"class_list":["post-730300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-f1-sports-auto-racing-league-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton-sports-auto-racing-player-player-statscom-355624","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}