Hamilton eager to launch redemption tour in year two with Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton says he lost sight of himself during his first year at Ferrari and is arriving at the Australian Grand Prix targeting wins in 2026 after “rediscovering” himself over the winter.

Ferrari signed Hamilton to huge fanfare starting in 2025, but other than a Sprint victory at the second round in China, the season was a disappointment as the Scuderia failed to win a grand prix all year. Hamilton cut a particularly despondent figure towards the end of the season, but is visibly more positive to start 2026 and says that is largely down to work done over the off-season.

“The break was really positive,” Hamilton said. “It was my surroundings, it was the people that I was with. It’s not my first rodeo, so it’s understanding how to flip things. It’s not that easy to do each time, but I always talk about cultivating a positive mental attitude and that’s what I focus on in my winter.

“A lot of it came from training. I was training hard from Christmas Day. Also, knowing that I believe in myself, that I’ve put more work in than anyone around me, and I believe in myself. Rediscovering myself was a big part of it as well. As I said in one of my posts, I kind of lost sight for a second of who I was, and that person’s gone, so you won’t see that person again.

“I think it was just something that built up over a period of time. It’s normal. Lots of people have that at some point through their lives, and it’s important that you pick yourself back up and you evaluate where you’ve been and, as I said, come back with that positive mental frame of mind.

“I feel great arriving here. Training has been fantastic. The work with the team has been amazing. Changes within my own personal space, and in how I interact with the team, how the team is working, is so much smoother than it was last year.”

Hamilton says the experience of learning the Ferrari culture last year has set him up to feel much more comfortable ahead of this weekend’s race at Albert Park, with a potentially more competitive car at his disposal.

“It’s massively different to the first year and a much nicer feeling, having spent a year at the team, understanding the culture, understanding ways, finding ways of working together. I think we’re in a good place now together as a team, and I feel very jelled with the team today. So yeah, much happier.

“The goal is to win. That’s what we’re working towards. Every team is, but that’s our goal: to maximize on every opportunity, to be hopefully fighting in the top group, hopefully in the first races.

“We don’t really know. Mercedes looked particularly quick and I’m not really sure whether we’ve seen the full, unleashed Red Bull yet, so it’s really, really exciting. But whatever the case, I feel like I’ve got a great group of people behind me who are head-down focused on bringing performance and really maximizing every weekend.”