Smiling and relaxed, Lewis Hamilton cuts the figure of a man savouring being able to do what he does best once more at Silverstone, demonstrating to the naysayers that he remains a force to be reckoned with at this weekend’s British Grand Prix.
In the buildup to Sunday’s race Hamilton is as of old at the circuit that is all but his fiefdom. He has nine wins here since his debut in 2007 – a record for any driver at one circuit – which began a love affair for the meeting that he shares with the fans and has never diminished.
His easy demeanour and renewed passion for the sport this weekend stands in stark contrast to what must be considered the British driver’s annus horribilis in 2025, when he made his debut with Ferrari.
With his car off the pace and adjusting to a new team after 12 years with Mercedes, he was at the lowest ebb of his career. Yet here we are now. The horse is prancing and Hamilton has the swagger of a young gunslinger again after a first win for the Scuderia at the Barcelona-Catalunya GP last month.
Ferrari’s car is far superior to last year’s, albeit perhaps a little underpowered to challenge Mercedes on the high-speed rollercoaster of Silverstone and while some of the changes wrought since last season have been technical, they have also been a factor of Hamilton’s personality. His will, his ability to be a differentiator.
Hamilton observed that this process has been a matter of making relationships with his new colleagues work from bottom to top. “Readjusting some of my team and how they connect, realigning myself with the higher powers within the organisation so that we’re making sure that we’re on the same track and we’re allies rather than foes,” was a factor he noted in the step up this season, intimating just quite how hard that initial adjustment to Ferrari had been. Albeit it is one which may make senior figures at Ferrari wince somewhat.
“That’s enabling us now to just move forward in synergy, also each weekend was a really difficult weekend last year,” he added. “So naturally people tend to listen to you less: ‘Why are we going to listen to you when you’re getting these results?’ So that’s taken a long time to build that trust. That trust is now there and things that I ask for get done.
“It’s a two-way street, naturally. We’re really pushing each other along and the collaboration is finally there.”
The “finally” is telling. At points last season Hamilton was so disheartened he questioned his own abilities. “I am just remembering who I am,” he said earlier this season. “Last year I sometimes forgot who I was.”
It is an extraordinary admission but also an endearingly human one from a driver who has always been unafraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. At the time it seemed from the outside he might have been approaching the dying of the light, yet Hamilton was muscularly exercising his will.
It was clear he was frustrated by the previous set of regulations. The ground effect aero did not suit his driving style and the new rules this season have been more to his liking but importantly he also set about moulding the car and team around him.
Hamilton has had the team change the front suspension of the car to one he helped develop last season, then to change the brake disc manufacturer from Brembo to Carbone Industrie. A minor tweak? Well, no. In a sport measured in the tiniest of increments, he now has the discs that fit what his late-braking style requires.
He also has an enthusiastically developing relationship with his race engineer, Carlo Santi. “The Italian Bono” Hamilton called him in reference to Peter Bonnington, his engineer during his success at Mercedes. Santi was initially temporarily in the position but such has their successful rapport been he looks sure to remain. Another jigsaw piece in place.
Noticeable too has been how Hamilton has outraced his teammate Charles Leclerc. Leclerc, with Ferrari since 2019, had the better of the British driver in 2025, seen in some quarters as an indication that Hamilton at 41 would not match his young teammate, a decline Leclerc would make definitive.
A prognosis that was as premature as it was egregious. Now Leclerc looks somewhat at sea and Hamilton the force at Ferrari. Three podiums and a win ensures the British driver still believes he can still be in the fight with the title leader, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli.
There was no little celebration at Ferrari and in F1 at Hamilton’s win in Barcelona; he remains the sport’s biggest global draw, possibly more so now in the rosso corsa of the Scuderia, but the result was followed by the reality check of a more sobering run in Austria, Hamilton finishing fifth.
He is not expecting miracles at Silverstone but once again revelling in his task at his home race, nothing can be ruled out. “Every single person at Ferrari is so geed up and pushing as much as they can, that’s all I can ever ask for,” he said with a broad smile. Regardless of whether the old airfield will once more fall to his genius, we should enjoy the ride.
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