After he took his best-ever grand prix consequence with Ferrari, it felt like a weight had fallen off Lewis Hamilton’s shoulders. Hamilton took second at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after an entertaining, race-long battle with Purple Bull’s Max Verstappen, hounding the Dutchman for laps earlier than making the cross into Flip 1 on lap 62.
However past the headline consequence, what was much more satisfying – and vital for the long-term image of this season – is that the seven-time world champion lastly is showing to mesh with the squad after a character-building first season in 2025 which prompted an low season reset, each for Hamilton personally and inside Maranello.
It’s no secret that regardless of all of the work that was accomplished between Hamilton and the Scuderia to combine him into the group, he hadn’t totally felt comfy with the instruments at his disposal on the engineering aspect till this 12 months. However with each events having dedicated to one another, at nice expense, for what’s believed to be at the least three seasons, quite a lot of personnel adjustments and different work happening within the background now seems to have borne fruit.
Ferrari introduced in former McLaren man Cedric Michel-Grosjean with a view to changing into Hamilton’s long-term race engineer, supported by Carlo Santi. Nonetheless, because of off-track commitments it will not essentially at all times be the identical voice on Hamilton’s radio, and Autosport understands Santi will engineer the Briton on the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix.
Regardless, trackside engineering help is not about one single particular person because it takes a group for a driver to fireside on all cylinders, with efficiency engineer Luca Diella one other vital cog within the wheel.
And after Hamilton outqualified Leclerc in each Montreal’s dash and grand prix qualifying because the Monegasque suffered a way more tough weekend, he now felt all of the items of the puzzle lastly appeared to suit.
“I lastly have the engineering group I’ve been working in direction of,” he stated, accompanied by a deep sigh of reduction.
“That is my first second place with the group. It’s one thing I’ve been working [on] so laborious, I can’t even start to elucidate how deep I’ve needed to dig to have the ability to get thus far, and the work and shifting mountains within the background to allow this type of efficiency. However I’m actually grateful to the group for persevering with to carry me up excessive and help me weekend in, weekend out. And it’s a extremely beautiful feeling to see them so pleased, as a result of they honestly deserve it with all of the laborious work they put in.”
Picture by: Bryn Lennon / Components 1 by way of Getty Photos
What has additionally helped is that Hamilton has been an integral a part of the 2026 improvement challenge, which wasn’t the case in 2025, the final 12 months of ground-effect laws he did not gel with. Having had key enter into the automotive from an early stage means there may be now much less catching as much as do.
Commenting on his new engineering set-up, Hamilton stated: “I selected a distinct set-up this weekend by way of simply ciphering by way of the information, working very well with my engineer. He’s completely superior and I’m actually loving working with him. And my quantity two did a improbable job this weekend and helped me actually pull extra efficiency out of the automotive, getting right into a a lot sweeter place. And I used to be capable of assault all of the corners lastly.
“There’s a variety of adjustments that I’ve needed to ask for, and Fred [Vasseur]’s been tremendous supportive and once more additionally shifting mountains to be able to make me snug. And it’s lastly beginning to present in my efficiency.”
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