Lewis Hamilton’s return to the Formula 1 title fight with Ferrari has been helped significantly by the characteristics of the new 2026 cars, according to nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen. After a deeply difficult first season at Maranello, Hamilton has climbed to second in the drivers’ championship and already surpassed his entire points total from 2025.
Kristensen believes the change is closely connected to Formula 1’s latest technical regulations. In his assessment, the previous ground-effect generation restricted some of Hamilton’s greatest strengths, while Ferrari’s SF-26 and the lighter, narrower 2026 cars have allowed the seven-time world champion to rediscover a much more instinctive approach behind the wheel.
Lewis Hamilton returns to title contention with Ferrari in 2026
At the summer break, Hamilton sits second in the drivers’ standings after 11 of the planned 23 rounds. The Briton has 169 points, 50 fewer than Mercedes championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who has accumulated 219.
That represents Hamilton’s strongest campaign since 2021 to this point of a season. It has also already taken him beyond his entire first-year Ferrari total, having scored only 156 points across 24 Grands Prix and six Sprint races in 2025. That return was his lowest over a full season under the points system introduced in 2010.
The contrast is particularly significant after Hamilton himself described his 2025 campaign as both a nightmare and the worst season of his Formula 1 career. His current position also means Ferrari remains involved in both championship battles heading into the second half of the year, despite the points still separating the Scuderia from Mercedes. A closer look at the points Hamilton has surrendered during Ferrari’s 2026 title challenge shows how costly individual weekends have already proved.
Tom Kristensen believes 2026 F1 rules better suit Lewis Hamilton
Kristensen has linked much of Hamilton’s turnaround to the retirement of Formula 1’s previous ground-effect cars. Speaking to SPEEDWEEK, the Danish endurance racing legend argued that Hamilton never truly felt comfortable with that generation of machinery and was consequently unable to exploit his natural strengths as effectively.
In Kristensen’s view, Hamilton is an exceptional driver whose style relies heavily on natural aggression, rapid reactions and the ability to respond immediately to what the car communicates. Rather than describing him as a driver who needs to control every aspect of the car in a predetermined way, Kristensen characterised Hamilton as fundamentally instinctive.
He explained that Hamilton works by receiving feedback from the car and reacting to it almost immediately. Under the previous high-downforce regulations, however, aerodynamic grip could disappear suddenly, making those reactions much more difficult to use effectively. Kristensen argued that even an outstanding driver could become powerless when the available downforce disappeared without sufficient warning.
Making those cars more predictable could also require compromises. According to Kristensen, teams sometimes needed to choose set-ups that produced a more manageable car but prevented it from delivering the fastest possible lap times.
The new regulations have changed that equation. Formula 1’s 2026 overhaul introduced narrower and lighter chassis with substantially less downforce, and Kristensen believes those characteristics are considerably closer to what Hamilton needs. Ferrari’s own development work with the SF-26 remains crucial, with the team continuing to assess the SF-26’s strengths and remaining limitations as the championship progresses.
Hamilton can again exploit his instinctive braking style
Emerson Fittipaldi has reached a similar conclusion about Hamilton’s improved form. The two-time Formula 1 world champion also believes the 2026 regulations fit the British driver’s natural technique much better than the previous ground-effect generation.
Those older cars required drivers to brake earlier, while the current machines give Hamilton greater scope to return to his preferred late-braking approach and carry speed through the corners when the battery situation permits. That characteristic plays more directly into the driving style with which he achieved so much of his earlier Formula 1 success.
The match is not perfect. The increased importance of electrical energy under the 2026 regulations, with the power split now close to 50/50, can require drivers to sacrifice corner speed in order to recharge the battery. That means Hamilton cannot always attack a corner exactly as he might prefer.
Even with that compromise, however, the overall behaviour of the current generation is much closer to his strengths. His results so far support Kristensen’s argument that the regulatory reset has played an important role in restoring his competitiveness.
Ferrari face both drivers’ and constructors’ championship decisions
Hamilton’s resurgence has given Ferrari an opportunity to challenge after the summer break, although the Scuderia still has substantial deficits to overturn. The seven-time champion trails Antonelli by 50 points, while Charles Leclerc is fourth in the standings and 81 points behind the Mercedes driver.
Ferrari’s position has already prompted discussion over how the team should approach the second half of the campaign. Hamilton’s historical strength after the summer interval has also fuelled the debate surrounding potential Ferrari team orders if one driver emerges as the clearer championship contender.
It has also been claimed that the Maranello team intends to place greater emphasis on winning the constructors’ championship than the drivers’ crown. Ferrari currently trails Mercedes by 72 points in the teams’ standings and is believed to view that deficit as more manageable than either driver’s individual gap to Antonelli.
Mercedes also has points spread across both cars. George Russell is 59 points behind team-mate Antonelli, meaning Ferrari’s challenge will depend not only on Hamilton and Leclerc taking points from the championship leader but also on consistently outscoring the Mercedes pairing.
That task makes the SF-26’s development through the remainder of the campaign especially important. Team principal Frédéric Vasseur has already delivered a demanding mid-season assessment of Ferrari’s 2026 performance, while the Scuderia has opted for a race-by-race development strategy for the SF-26 rather than relying solely on occasional major upgrade packages.
For Hamilton, though, the most important difference compared with 2025 may already be established. Kristensen believes the current Formula 1 machinery finally allows the Ferrari driver to rely more heavily on the instincts, aggression and fast reactions that have defined his driving throughout his career, giving him a platform to fight near the front again.
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