Hamilton reveals key to Ferrari turnaround: 'Took time to build trust'

After consistently finishing on the podium and claiming his first victory in Ferrari colors at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, Hamilton's 2026 campaign could not be more different from his first season with the team.

The Briton explained that working with the team was essential to become more comfortable. He began: "One being a car that I really have helped develop. There’s items on the car, for example front suspension that I’d asked for last year and had it made for the sim and tested it on that.

Hamilton continued: "That’s just now in a much better place, and that’s enabling us now to just move forward in synergy. I think also having those, you know, each weekend was a really difficult weekend last year.

At Silverstone, Hamilton added another podium to his tally this season. He is currently third in the drivers' standings, 32 points behind Kimi Antonelli heading into the Belgian Grand Prix.

Despite Leclerc's victory at the British Grand Prix, Ferrari was urged to prioritise Hamilton over the Monegasque driver by Rob Smedley.

The former Ferrari man explained: "However, I am going to go against my own sense of logic and say I actually think that doing something as extreme as that is the only chance Ferrari has of winning this world championship."

He added: "I think that if they play the game of trying to outpace Mercedes in car terms, and then they play the game of allowing the drivers to race each other with such a big gap between Lewis and Charles, the probability significantly diminishes for them to win the drivers' world championship.