Lewis Hamilton has sent a definitive message over his future in Formula 1 ahead of the 2026 season.
Hamilton is set to enter his second year with Ferrari after joining them at the beginning of 2025.
It was initially reported that the seven-time world champion had signed a guaranteed two-year contract with the Scuderia, with the option of a third year that he could trigger at any time.
However, the exact length has never been officially disclosed, and various outlets have since claimed that his deal with Ferrari could in fact be a four-year agreement.
Hamilton struggled during his first season with the Scuderia, finishing seventh in the Drivers’ Championship and being regularly outpaced in both qualifying and races by team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton has been driving without a permanent race engineer during testing (Image: Getty)
A permanent successor to Adami has still not been announced – something Hamilton described earlier this month as potentially being ‘detrimental’ to his season as he will need to adapt to a new arrangement mid-season.
Carlo Santi, who is the former race engineer of Kimi Raikkonen, is currently working with the 41-year-old, but Sky Sports claim this is an interim partnership amid speculation that ex-McLaren performance engineer Cedric-Michel Grosjean is being lined up by Ferrari.
On the track, though, Ferrari have appeared to enjoy a successful pre-season testing programme, with only minor reliability issues affecting their running in Bahrain.
The Scuderia trialled an innovative rear wing update on day two of the third and final testearlier this week, which could increase top speeds by up to 10km/h once permanently fitted to the car.
The new design, which pivots the rear wing by 270 degrees when the new active aerodynamics system is enabled by the driver, is said to have ‘surprised’ engineers at Mercedes and Red Bull, according to AutoRacer.
And on the final day of testing, Leclerc topped the timesheets by over eight tenths to further underline Ferrari’s seemingly strong performance.