Lewis Hamilton’s strong start at Ferrari has intensified his battle with Charles Leclerc inside Maranello, with former drivers and team figures saying the seven-time world champion is beginning to tilt the balance. Former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley said Hamilton has been placed on a pedestal by Ferrari personnel and the Italian media, while David Coulthard said Leclerc has the maturity to handle the pressure but should not expect to beat Hamilton every weekend. Smedley added that the fight could still tighten later in the year, though he thinks Hamilton will ultimately “nick it.”

Hamilton won his first race for Ferrari at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix and followed it with podiums in Canada and Monaco after a difficult opening spell. He said the improvement has come from changes to his race team, race engineer and weekend approach. Leclerc’s season has been less settled, with crashes in Monaco and Barcelona qualifying, a late retirement in Barcelona after a power steering issue, and a broader lack of pace. Jacques Villeneuve said Leclerc benefited when Hamilton was underperforming last year, but now faces a more capable and fully adapted teammate.

The gap between the Ferrari drivers has continued to grow. After Barcelona, Hamilton led Leclerc by 40 points, and the latest standings have Hamilton second overall, 41 points behind Kimi Antonelli, with Leclerc fourth and 40 points behind Hamilton. Leclerc’s long-term contract extension gives him time to respond rather than needing an immediate turnaround, and Smedley said he expects the Ferrari academy product to recover from the setback.

Mercedes has identified a fault in its F1 power unit battery as the likely cause of the costly retirements that hit George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, and the team is working on a permanent fix. Russell’s Canadian Grand Prix ended while he was leading, while Antonelli retired from second place in Barcelona after a similar failure. Technical director James Allison said the battery was the source of the reliability issue after examining Antonelli’s car.

Allison said the two failures were not identical, but both came from the same broad area of the battery. Mercedes is developing new modules to improve reliability across its cars, and it has already narrowed down most of the risk areas. The team is taking a cautious short-term approach while engineers work toward a lasting solution, but it has not given a timeline for the repair. Mercedes heads into four race weekends in five weeks, starting with Austria next weekend.

The problem has hurt Mercedes’ constructors’ title fight, with team principal Toto Wolff saying after Barcelona that the team could not afford repeated DNFs and would investigate the issue thoroughly. The retirements cost Mercedes potential podium finishes while its cars were running in strong positions. Mercedes did not say whether McLaren’s recent electrical issues were linked to the fault it found, and former driver David Coulthard said reliability problems could worsen as the 2026 season progresses, even as he still viewed Mercedes as having the strongest overall package on the grid.

Lewis Hamilton extended Formula 1’s record for the longest span between a driver’s first and last Grand Prix victories when he won the Spanish Grand Prix at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, his 106th career victory. The win came 19 years and 4 days after his first Formula 1 triumph in Canada in 2007 with McLaren, across 381 Grands Prix. Hamilton also became the first driver older than 40 to win a Formula 1 race since Nigel Mansell in 1994, and the first British driver to win for Ferrari in the 21st century.

The Barcelona result ended a year-long drought and marked Hamilton’s first win in a Ferrari after he went without a victory or podium in his first season with the team in 2025. He has looked more competitive in 2026, finishing second in Canada and showing strong pace in Monaco before converting that form into a dominant win in Spain. A virtual safety car helped at the finish, and the report said Ferrari had put him in position to capitalize. His improvement has also been linked to a new race engineer and a revised pre-race routine that emphasizes data analysis over simulator work.

Hamilton said each of his 106 victories has followed its own path and that the Barcelona result showed success is still within reach if he keeps working. He said his physical condition and self-confidence help him compete against younger drivers, pointing to 19-year-old championship leader Kimi Antonelli as an example of Formula 1’s generational contrast. Hamilton also said the previous year was difficult and that he briefly wondered whether he had lost his edge before this victory restored his confidence. After the race, he moved into second place in the drivers’ standings, nine points ahead of George Russell, and trimmed his deficit to Antonelli by 25 points, though he still trailed the championship leader by 41 points. Hamilton said he was not yet focused on matching an eighth world title and said Ferrari’s SF-26 still does not match the performance level of Mercedes’ W17.