Lewis Hamilton is about to get the answers he’s been looking for

Lewis Hamilton has been good in the F1 2026 season so far. But how good?

With Ferrari expected to contend for victory in the upcoming races in Hungary and the Netherlands, Charles Leclerc’s timely return to form will tell us where Lewis really stands…

Charles Leclerc’s revival will finally tell us where Lewis Hamilton really stands

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust

A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from the 2026 British Grand Prix

So is Lewis Hamilton back now? Is he back to his best? Just as good as he was before?

Even at 41, is he still at his peak – or close enough to it – to make thoughts of an eighth world championship realistic in 2026?

Hyperbole reigns supreme in the modern world and Formula 1 is far from immune to it.

So naturally, a driver claiming his first win in almost two years, coming off the back of the worst season of his career in 2025, was followed by breathless talk that he had just intruded on the 2026 title race.

Wait. A Minute.

Have we lost our collective minds? Where has our perspective gone?

One win in Barcelona did not make Lewis Hamilton a serious title contender any more than, say, one win in Budapest made Esteban Ocon a serious title contender in 2021.

It was much too soon to talk of Hamilton in those terms after a single victory.

Not only because of the doubts that came before Barcelona, but also because of the relative form of Charles Leclerc.

Complicating the picture surrounding Hamilton – and where he really stands at this stage of 2026 – is that his rise began just as Leclerc started to fall around the time of the Canadian Grand Prix.

How to accurately gauge the level at which Lewis is operating when the only other driver with identical machinery has been performing so far below his?

And might it be that Leclerc’s struggles over recent months have actually flattered Hamilton, making his results look better than they would be against a Charles at full flight?

Leclerc’s mini-crises come around every couple of years or so, lasting a few painful weeks before he starts to find his way again.

This year’s implosion centered around the brakes, specifically a sudden unhappiness with his own setup once Hamilton successfully made the transition to the Carbone Industrie discs he used to great success at Mercedes.

Since following him to CI discs in Barcelona, the weekend he hit rock bottom of his 2026 dip with a crash in qualifying, Leclerc has gradually been rising again.

An encouraging race drive in Spain, undone by a late DNF, was followed by him narrowly missing out on pole in Austria before Silverstone and Spa saw him at somewhere near full strength again for the first time since Miami.

If Hamilton finally remembered who he is in Barcelona, Leclerc has just rediscovered himself too.

“I had two approaches recently,” Leclerc told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets of his renewed feeling for the car at Silverstone.

“There was either the one where I just changed my driving style completely and just try and reproduce what Lewis is doing, because clearly it’s working, or keep pushing in my direction and trying to find a way around where the car just fits my driving a little bit better.

“And I went towards the second route, which was to stick with what I know worked in the past and try to find a way around with the car and with every tool that I have available inside the car.”

The pattern of Silverstone and Spa was more like what most have come to expect from the inter-team Ferrari battle: Leclerc holding a slight but telling advantage over Hamilton.

Charles has resurfaced just in the nick of time with Ferrari likely to enter some of the upcoming races – certainly Hungary and Zandvoort either side of the summer break – as favourites for victory, potentially setting up a couple of irresistible Hamilton-versus-Leclerc contests.

Is it the car or is it me?

That’s the question Hamilton has spent the last four-and-a-half years asking himself, unable to tell for certain if he has been underperforming in cars capable of more.

Leclerc’s revival means Lewis is finally about to get the answers he’s been looking for.

He might not like what he finds.

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read next: First look: Ferrari debuts extreme Macarena rear wing at Hungarian GP