Lewis Hamilton is enjoying life in the Ferrari SF-26, and the fact that he can feel elements in the design which he requested from the team.
With an exciting development war to come, Hamilton has been holding valuable meetings with Ferrari personnel, and has been messaging Ferrari’s head of aerodynamics. This reveal comes after Hamilton was seen checking out the Mercedes W17 cars at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Hamilton guides Ferrari SF-26 improvements with rival car insights
Mercedes has emerged as the leading team of Formula 1’s new era in 2026. But, through the opening rounds, Ferrari, and more recently McLaren, have been nipping at the heels of the Silver Arrows.
Now into his second season at Ferrari, Hamilton has cut a far happier figure, and has been finding more joy on the track. Having gone the entirety of 2025 without a podium, he opened his Ferrari account with a P3 in China.
“It’s started out a really good year, and the energy within the team and just how we’re all operating together, it’s been really, really positive,” Hamilton declared in a Formula 1 interview, released over the Japanese Grand Prix race weekend.
“I’m enjoying driving the new car, and it’s a car that I got to play a heavy role in helping develop last year through the simulator running. So it’s nice to see some of the things that I asked for come through onto the design of the car, and get to feel them, and feel them positively.”
For Hamilton, the ground effect era, which ceased to be with the arrival of F1 2026, brought some highs, but a lot of challenges.
Those cars proved notoriously tricky to develop for some teams, especially when it came to virtual data correlating with on-track performance.
Hamilton believes that F1 2026 brings with it a return of the “pure car performance” development war. As part of that, he has been holding meetings with various Ferrari departments to help steer them in the right direction.
It’s really nice that we’ve started the season and we don’t have bouncing,” Hamilton declared, “because obviously, that last generation was a nightmare for everyone with bouncing, apart from maybe the Red Bulls.
So that’s one thing out of the way, and it comes then back down to just pure car performance.
“Everyone’s starting from scratch, and it’s a big reset for everybody. So then it’s a race to the finish line. It’s like a race to see who can develop and push the team and grow faster and stronger, and with more stamina through the season, to continue to pile on performance to a car.
That makes it so much more exciting then. You’re seeing the development coming through.
“I was at the factory last week, and this is the time that you can go to the different departments, and you can hold meetings with people saying, ‘Hey, what are you focusing on here? These are the areas that I’m really struggling with the car. Can you put some more resource here? This is exactly what we need’.