Lewis Hamilton confident of overcoming 2025 woes with his "DNA" in SF-26 F1 car

Lewis Hamilton is confident of overcoming his incredibly disappointing debut season with Ferrari in the 2026 Formula 1 campaign as his ‘DNA is now within’ the SF-26.

The seven-time world champion made a blockbuster move to the Scuderia last year, but he ultimately underwhelmed by finishing sixth in the standings, 86 points behind team-mate Charles Leclerc with zero grand prix victories.

Hamilton often cut a dejected figure in 2025 and at one stage he even called him “useless”, saying Ferrari should ‘probably change driver’ after qualifying 12th in Hungary - far from his worst result that season.

He claimed that one of the factors behind his poor form was the SF-25 being developed without his input, given he was with Mercedes at the time, stressing how long it takes to adapt to new surroundings. 

His shining light was always the 2026 regulation change, often saying he wants to give his “DNA” to this year’s Ferrari and Hamilton believes that has happened after four days of Bahrain pre-season testing. 

“I spent a lot of time rebuilding over this winter, refocusing, really getting my body and my mind to a much better place,” said the 41-year-old on Wednesday.

“I generally feel in the best place that I've been in a long, long time with rearranging things within my team and then with the car, I think we started off quite well so far.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Joe Portlock / LAT Images via Getty Images

“And it's just an exciting time with this new generation of car as well, because it's all brand new, we're all trying to figure it out on the go.

“Last year we were locked into a car that ultimately I inherited. This is a car that I've been able to be a part of developing on the simulator for the last 10 months, eight months and so like a bit of my DNA is within it. So, I'm more connected to this one for sure.”

The rearrangements Hamilton speaks of includes a change in race engineer as Riccardo Adami has moved on - his replacement remains to be announced - while the Briton even split with his manager Marc Hynes. That is amongst other various tweaks and so Hamilton is now confident of taking that next step in 2026, which’ll be the final year of his current contract.

“My belief in the team is still absolutely the same, 100% faith in this team and what they're capable of,” he added.

“That's why I joined the team. I knew it wasn't going to be an overnight thing where we'd have success immediately. That's why I signed a longer deal, because I knew it was more often than not, it's a process.

“So yeah, I feel like we've also learned a huge amount from last year as a team and there have been changes that we've made. Everyone's constantly keen to make improvements and be better. I think we're working better together than ever before. So I'm excited for that moving forward.”