Buy tickets<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe made so many changes and we made so many improvements, and on top of that I\u2019ve got the greatest fanbase a sportsman could ever ask for. Thank you, thank you to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory completed a major turnaround for Hamilton, who endured a difficult first season with Ferrari in 2025 after his high-profile move from Mercedes.<\/p>\n
He finished sixth in last year\u2019s standings, 86 points behind teammate Charles Leclerc, and started the campaign with a crash at Barcelona in pre-season testing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning of last year I got injured here, actually, and carried that for months,\u201d said Hamilton, who stopped short of detailing the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cA thing that I just know is to never doubt yourself, never second-guess yourself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to continue to believe in yourself at the core, and those are the things that I\u2019ve managed to re-implement into my mentality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve rebuilt my mind to this point to get myself back to where I was, and it\u2019s a great feeling to stand on that podium.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was saying earlier on, I\u2019m probably going to sleep in this red top tonight. It\u2019s a good feeling to have the horse on there at the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur praised Hamilton\u2019s resilience after finally converting the team\u2019s progress into victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot about resilience because I think he had to face tough moments,\u201d Vasseur said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis last season at Mercedes was not an easy one, his first season with us was not easy. He had tough moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he was able to keep the same energy into the project to be able to push at the factory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vasseur also believed Hamilton had the pace to win even without the Virtual Safety Car that helped Ferrari pull off its three-stop strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have won the race, perhaps with a bit less,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we were also in a good situation with a fresh set of tyres at this stage. It was positive for us, but I don\u2019t want to do the calculation what would have been in the race with this or this.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think we were already in a very good situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s triumph was also hailed by Ferrari executive chairman John Elkann.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell done Lewis, on your first great victory with Ferrari: an emotional moment and a very important result, which belongs to the entire team and to all our fans,\u201d Elkann said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to thank everyone for the determination, sacrifice and collective effort that they demonstrate every day with passion and Ferrari spirit, both at the track and in Maranello.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton takes first Ferrari win in Barcelona, Antonelli suffers DNF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton has described his win for Ferrari a ‘dream’ in Barcelona. Image: XPB Images The seven-time world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[239088,3517,3513,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-478256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-barcelona-catalunya-gp","tag-ferrari","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Hamilton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/XPB_1418682_HiRes.jpg\")
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/287093.gif\")