Lewis Hamilton feels ‘more connected’ to Ferrari SF-26 after overhaul

Lewis Hamilton declared that he feels “more connected” to the new Ferrari challenger than last season, in part because he had the chance to place “a bit of my DNA within it”.

Hamilton did not score a podium finish across a season for the first time in his Formula 1 career last season, but having offered his feedback and knowledge on Ferrari’s 2026 machine, that has helped him to build a connection with the car to take him through the year ahead.

Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari SF-26 has his ‘DNA’

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Hamilton has undergone something of an overhaul away from the circuit, having parted ways with his manager, Marc Hynes, who has taken on a role with Cadillac, as part of a wider shake-up of his personal team.

The Briton also heads into the season with a temporary race engineer, as Ferrari moved Riccardo Adami onto a new role within the organisation.

Ferrari seems to have started pre-season well on track, clocking plenty of mileage in Barcelona shakedown running and Bahrain testing so far, showing the early reliability of its new power unit alongside ranking around the top of the leaderboard – though testing times are a famously unreliable barometer of a competitive pecking order.

Hamilton would not be fully drawn as to whether this was the most confident he has felt in the past five years, but his signing of a longer contract with Ferrari was a sign of his commitment to the Ferrari project.

“I always try to enter into a season with confidence,” Hamilton told PlanetF1.com and others in Bahrain. “But of course, you’re faced with all sorts of different challenges along the way.

“Obviously gone through quite a bit, and, for me, all of last year is behind me. I spent a lot of time rebuilding over this winter, refocusing, really getting my body and my mind to a much better place.

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“In general, just making sure that I’m able to arrive feeling better now, generally, feel personally in the best place that I’ve been in a long time, with rearranging things within my team.

“It’s 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 and as where 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, so a bit of my DNA is within it. I’m more connected to this one.

“My belief in the team is still absolutely the same 100% faith in this team and what they’re capable of. 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, more often than not, it’s a process.

“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, and so I think we’re working better together than ever before. So I’m excited for that moving forwards.”

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