{"id":737024,"date":"2026-06-14T22:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T22:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/737024\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T22:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T22:19:12","slug":"the-ingenious-trick-behind-lewis-hamiltons-ferrari-resurgence-and-why-he-can-win-eighth-f1-world-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/737024\/","title":{"rendered":"The ingenious trick behind Lewis Hamilton\u2019s Ferrari resurgence \u2013 and why he can win eighth F1 world title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Puffing out his cheeks at the start of a series of media pen interviews, Lewis Hamilton<\/a> grinned a smile some two-and-a-half years in the making. \u201cJeez, where do I start?!\u201d he told Sky Sports\u2019 Craig Slater, after a day under the Catalunyan sun he had long dreamed of. On a red-hot afternoon, for the first time since Mexico in October 2024, it was rich scarlet red on top of the podium once again.<\/p>\n

Even for 41-year-old Hamilton, who has experienced and endured just about every sensation possible in his two decades in Formula 1, this was something new. Something fresh. And perhaps, most tantalisingly of all, something worth building towards for the rest of the 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n

When Hamilton told Mercedes<\/a> boss Toto Wolff<\/a> over lunch in February 2024 that he was moving to Ferrari<\/a>, F1<\/a>\u2019s greatest modern driver probably did not envisage waiting 28 months for his first victory in red. But in Barcelona<\/a> on Sunday, 686 days since his last grand prix triumph at Spa-Francorchamps, Hamilton claimed a much-deserved victory from second on the grid. Mercedes, this year\u2019s runaway train out in front, had no answers to the galloping prancing horse.<\/p>\n

\"Lewis<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton claimed his first grand prix win for Ferrari in Barcelona on Sunday (Getty)<\/p>\n

A late virtual-safety-car was the clincher and some may say he was the simple recipient of good fortune. They\u2019d be wrong. Even when chasing George Russell up ahead, Hamilton\u2019s new-and-improved Ferrari \u2013 with a staggering eight upgrades brought to this race by the Scuderia \u2013 was the fastest car on track. Without the VSC, Hamilton would likely have passed his compatriot anyway.<\/p>\n

But in some ways, you make your own luck. Ferrari, in a change of attitude as surprising and welcoming as the emergence of a challenger to Mercedes in itself, went bold, opting for a three-stop strategy compared to Hamilton\u2019s rivals around him going for the more routine two stops. It allowed Hamilton, so on song in recent weeks, to rip the bones out of each set of tyres. By the final stint, having left the pit-lane in front, Hamilton stormed to the chequered flag, converting a two-second lead into a 19.5-second race victory.<\/p>\n

It was the biggest margin of victory so far this season. There was something so appropriate that the first all-British podium (alongside Russell in second and Lando Norris in third) since the 1968 US Grand Prix in Watkins Glen (featuring Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill and John Surtees) was led by one of Britain\u2019s greatest-ever sportsmen.<\/p>\n

And it comes just six months after Hamilton\u2019s worst-ever F1 season, when he failed to even register a grand prix podium in his desperate first year in red. Naturally, in the aftermath, he paid tribute to those who kept him going.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fans really saved me through such a difficult moment last year,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery day, I had this dream as a kid. I remember watching the red car and wondering what it\u2019d be like to win in that car. There\u2019s nothing like it, absolutely incredible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came from quite a low place \u2013 it\u2019s about never giving up on yourself, keep on trying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrari\u2019s progression in recent weeks has been massively encouraging. Barcelona, a track often used for winter testing, can give an accurate reading for the rest of the season, given its combination of high and low-speed corners. Hamilton\u2019s pace on Sunday, not just beating Mercedes but in the end annihilating them, may mean we have a two-team championship showdown after all. After seven rounds, Hamilton trails Kimi Antonelli<\/a> \u2013 the man who replaced him at the Silver Arrows and who had an unfortunate late mechanical failure on Sunday \u2013 by 41 points.<\/p>\n

\"Hamilton<\/p>\n

Hamilton took the chequered flag by 19.5 seconds (AP)<\/p>\n

Yet to surmise that the car\u2019s improvement is the hard-and-fast reason for Hamilton finding his feet again is altogether too simple. In fact, of more significance has been the seven-time world champion\u2019s tinkering behind the scenes, not least an ingenious trick which has given him confidence behind the wheel once again. Intriguingly, at the same time, it has sent his teammate Charles Leclerc into a tailspin.<\/p>\n

TOP-10 – BARCELONA-CATALUNYA GP<\/p>\n

1. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)<\/p>\n

2. George Russell (Mercedes)<\/p>\n

3. Lando Norris (McLaren)<\/p>\n

4. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)<\/p>\n

5. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)<\/p>\n

6. Isack Hadjar (Red Bull)<\/p>\n

7. Pierre Gasly (Alpine)<\/p>\n

8. Franco Colapinto (Alpine)<\/p>\n

9. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)<\/p>\n

10. Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls)<\/p>\n

Hamilton revealed in Barcelona that earlier in the season, at round three in Japan, he had switched from Ferrari\u2019s long-term brake disc supplier, Brembo, to the Carbon Industrie brakes he used during his trophy-laden years at Mercedes. These new brakes have given Hamilton the feel he craved for in the cockpit, allowing him to carry more speed into the corners with the innate knowledge that his brakes would bite as and when.<\/p>\n

The correlation with his results \u2013 Sunday was his third consecutive top-three finish \u2013 is plain as day. “There are elements \u200bof the car that I’d asked for, and the team listened,\u201d Hamilton said.<\/p>\n

“There are many elements \u200bthat just wouldn’t work for me with the setup that we had here and it’s taken a long time to get those things changed.\u201d Another change which has clearly worked is Hamilton ditching his race engineer Riccardo Adami for Carlo Santi, who seemed much more in tune with his driver over team radio on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"Hamilton<\/p>\n

Hamilton led an all-British podium on Sunday – the first since 1968 (Getty)<\/p>\n

On the flip side, the brake switch has given Leclerc \u2013 now trailing his teammate Hamilton by 40 points \u2013 a headache. Baffled by the Briton\u2019s superiority in recent weeks, the Monegasque also switched to Carbon Industrie discs this weekend. Yet he did not have the same handling, thrusting his car into the wall in qualifying. He finished out of the points at the end of the race after, in an unrelated issue, his power steering broke.<\/p>\n

Deep down, Hamilton won\u2019t care a jot about his teammate\u2019s toils. On the contrary, out of nothing, Hamilton now looks a serious contender at the top of the standings, for the first time since that memorable 2021 season. With a quick car beneath him, an inexperienced teenager at the top of the leaderboard to chase and an outlook and perspective revitalised \u2013 don\u2019t overlook Hamilton\u2019s satisfaction with his personal life, either, including his newfound romance with Kim Kardashian \u2013 it seems Hamilton\u2019s long-held swansong aspiration to claim a record-breaking eighth world championship is not so far-fetched after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely, this is just beginning,\u201d Hamilton said, when asked about a title challenge. \u201cMercedes have an amazing package; it will take absolutely everything from all of us in this team to overcome the deficit and to get to being ahead of them consistently.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut nothing\u2019s impossible, one step at a time.\u201d The next two races, in Austria and his beloved Silverstone, will tell us whether Ferrari can really claim their first drivers\u2019 championship in 19 years or whether Barcelona was a simple flash-in-the-pan. For pure curiosity, let\u2019s hope it\u2019s the former.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Puffing out his cheeks at the start of a series of media pen interviews, Lewis Hamilton grinned a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,930,576,577,3024,932,1881,82],"class_list":["post-737024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-mercedes","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737024","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=737024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}