To combat boredom during the winter break, we found a statistic about Lewis Hamilton that bodes well for Ferrari and its fans. Not for 2025, but for 2026.
As of a few days ago, Lewis Hamilton has joined the 40-year-old club. As of a few days ago, Lewis Hamilton officially became a Ferrari driver. There are already dates circled in red in the calendar of every Ferrari fan. Feb. 18: London unveiling of the first LH44-badged Ferrari. March 14: Hamilton’s first race weekend as a Prancing Horse version.
While engines are off and cars are stopped, with our minds still far from the spring that will see the return of the Grand Prix, a curious statistic keeps us company on these cold winter days: Lewis Hamilton has always won the championship in the second season with every team he has raced for.
Of course, there were only two teams before Ferrari: McLaren and Mercedes. Hamilton made his Formula 1 debut in 2007, finishing the year with an extraordinary second place and losing the title by only one point to Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.
In 2008, however, there is no Raikkonen to hold him back: always at Interlagos, always against a Ferrari (Felipe Massa’s). This time, however, the point lead is on his side. Same story for the Mercedes period: debut in 2013, with a more complicated start (fourth place in the championship) and title in 2014, the first of a long series.
True, in 2008 Hamilton was 23 years old, in 2014 he was 29, and in 2026 he will be no less than 41. Time passes for everyone, and the last few years in Mercedes under the new regulations have certainly not been easy. Everyone, however, knows his worth: “Lewis is the same as ever, he can still win,” the words of Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ chief track engineer. And the seven-time world champion still has the same goal firmly fixed in his head from 2021 onward: to become the lone frontrunner and stretch Michael Schumacher to eight championships.
Driving for the team that bears Enzo Ferrari’s name will not be a walk in the park, both in terms of adapting to a totally different environment from the one at Brackley and the pressures it all entails. From the most successful driver in history in the most successful car in history only one thing is expected: to win.
“Let’s make it a year to remember,” Hamilton commented at the dawn of 2025 on his LinkedIn profile. Fantasizing for a moment, however, the Ferraristi hope that in 2026 he can continue the trend that has accompanied him throughout his career.
Photo: Formula 1.com