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F1 2026: ROSS BRAWN BACKS LEWIS HAMILTON: "I KNOW HOW TOUGH IT IS AT FERRARI."

Ross Brawn believes a "vintage" Lewis Hamilton is coming in 2026. Discover if Ferrari's SF-26 can finally end their title drought.

F1 2026: Ross Brawn backs Lewis Hamilton: "I know how tough it is at Ferrari."
Lewis Hamilton is not the problem

Ross Brawn believes Lewis Hamilton still has what it takes to deliver a classic F1 season with Ferrari—as long as the team can give him a competitive car in 2026.

Ferrari almost grabbed the constructors’ title in 2024, but things fell apart last year. They dropped from second to fourth and didn’t win a single race. For Hamilton, his first season in red was rough. After that headline-making move from Mercedes, he didn’t even make it onto the podium—something that’s never happened in his F1 career before.

Still, Brawn—who knows a thing or two about Ferrari, having led the team during their glory days with Michael Schumacher—backs Hamilton to find his old form again.

“Honestly, we’d all love to see him succeed,” Brawn told Sky Sports News at the Autosport Awards. “Ferrari’s got a special place in my heart. I spent ten years there. It’s a tough place to work.”

He added, “The difference between a team really clicking and just missing the mark is tiny. Last year, it just didn’t come together. But if Hamilton gets the right motivation and sees a real shot, I think we’ll see that vintage Lewis. I really hope it happens.”

Brawn also gave credit to Fred Vasseur, Ferrari’s current team boss, for handling a tough situation. “You can’t always see what’s going on behind the scenes—the engineers, how everything is working together. I don’t know all the details, but I think this season will show what Fred’s made of.”

Now, with new rules coming in, Ferrari faces huge pressure. They haven’t won a title in nearly twenty years, and the expectation to turn things around is sky-high. Charles Leclerc, who easily outperformed Hamilton last season, says it plainly: “It’s now or never” for Ferrari to finally build a championship-winning car.

FRED VASSEUR SLAMS "ENOUGH WITH THIS STORY" OVER LEWIS HAMILTON’S ENGINEER DRAMA

Lewis Hamilton calls engineer change "detrimental." Get the latest on Carlo Santi, Cedric Michel-Grosjean, and Vasseur's defense.

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Lewis Hamilton Is Starting 2026 Without A Race Engineer

Lewis Hamilton heads into his second season with Ferrari, but he still doesn’t have a new race engineer lined up. Team boss Fred Vasseur doesn’t seem too worried, though. He brushed off the drama around Hamilton’s situation, saying it’s not really a big deal.

Last year, Hamilton worked alongside Ricardo Adami during his debut season with Ferrari, but they’ve already parted ways ahead of the 2026 season. Even though the new season’s just a couple of weeks away, Ferrari hasn’t named a permanent replacement.

People questioned how well Hamilton and Adami actually communicated last season, especially when Hamilton’s frustration came through on team radio. Now, with Hamilton needing to build a new working relationship, Vasseur insists it’s not creating any bad vibes.

“That’s not exactly what’s happening,” Vasseur told reporters, including those from RacingNews365. “The teamwork between Lewis and everyone on the pit wall is really strong. He’s confident, he’s open, and honestly, I feel good about where things stand. The whole goal is just to keep getting better, day by day. If there’s something to improve, I’ll push for it, but Lewis is in a great mindset.”

During pre-season testing, Hamilton teamed up with Carlo Santi, who used to engineer for Kimi Raikkonen. Meanwhile, rumours are swirling that Ferrari wants to hire Cedric Michel-Grosjean, who just left McLaren, to take over as Hamilton’s race engineer. But Vasseur is clearly tired of the speculation.

When someone brought it up yet again, he cut them off. “Please, enough with this story,” he said. “Look around the paddock. Out of 22 cars, you’ll see six or seven new engineers every year; the same goes for team principals. Honestly, I’m probably the oldest one here, along with Toto Wolff. Teams swap out three or four team principals a year, and it’s not the end of the world.

“There are about 1,500 people in the team now. It’s never just about one race engineer. The person on the pit wall leads a whole group working on the car, so it’s not about individuals. In Formula 1, it’s always about the team. It never comes down to just one person.”

CHARLES LECLERC WARNS F1 OVERTAKING IS "EXTREMELY DIFFICULT" UNDER NEW 2026 REGULATIONS

Charles Leclerc and Esteban Ocon flagged "difficult" passing in 2026 testing. Discover why the 50/50 power split is a strategic nightmare.

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What Charles Leclerc Really Means By "Costly" Overtakes In 2026

Charles Leclerc isn’t sugarcoating it: overtaking looks like a real challenge under the new regulations, and the cost of trying is way higher than before.

Max Verstappen kicked off the complaints about the rules, since now so much depends on how well drivers handle their battery levels. The big change is the 50/50 power split between the internal combustion engine and the battery. That’s forced drivers to rethink everything; they’re saving battery instead of just going flat out for speed.

We’ve just come out of an era where ground effect cars made overtaking tough because of all the dirty air, and honestly, it doesn’t sound like things are getting any easier. No one’s raced for points yet, but after testing in Bahrain, the mood in the paddock isn’t exactly upbeat.

Esteban Ocon was quick to sound the alarm. After following a few cars in testing, he noticed he lost a lot of front grip, maybe even more than last year. He tried the overtake mode but didn’t want to jump to conclusions too soon. Still, his gut feeling? Passing looks tough.

Leclerc agrees. He says he’s on the same page as the other drivers. Right now, overtaking is extremely hard. Maybe with time, as everyone learns how to manage these situations, it’ll get better. But at the moment, every overtake comes at a much steeper battery cost than before. That means even if you pull off a move, getting away from the car behind isn’t as simple as it was last year. It’s just tricky.

When asked about the new rules overall, Leclerc isn’t quite as downbeat as Verstappen, but he admits something’s missing. He’s always loved the aggressive, attacking style of the older F1 cars, and he feels like there’s less of that now. The changes are huge; everything feels completely different from what he’s known in his career. But he does see progress. The cars are getting better, and everyone’s still learning, trying to figure out all the new systems and how to squeeze out the best performance. There’s a lot of work ahead, but things are moving in the right direction.

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