Lewis Hamilton secured P4 at the 2026 F1 Australian GP, praising Ferrari’s progress and the new generation of cars while acknowledging that the team still lacks pace compared to Mercedes.
After a difficult qualifying session with a power issue that hurt his potential, Hamilton was set to start 7th on the grid. However, in an exciting start, the seven-time World Champions made up a few crucial positions to run in P3 by Lap 2. Later, several DNFs and VSC interruptions left the Ferrari duo running 1-2 on track as Mercedes pitted. Despite multiple opportunities to pit under the VSC, Ferrari opted for an alternative strategy by not pitting to cover Mercedes, which may ultimately have limited them to P3 and P4.
Race start and early battles
Speaking after the 2026 F1 Australian GP, Hamilton made it clear that he was happy with the result despite the poor strategy call.
“No, there’s no mixed emotions,” he said. “I feel great. It was a really great race. Just 7th to 4th. I think the team did a great job overall and the car was feeling strong. We’re not obviously where we want to be in terms of pace to Mercedes. I think there’s lots and lots of positives to take from that.”
Further reflecting on his race start and the early battles, Hamilton said:
“I had a good start and I think George, I don’t know if he was defending me, but I ended up being a bit wide through Turn 1 and then lost a bit of ground. But obviously then I was back in the fight, in the mix. And then I was just really just trying to… I was just learning about the car the whole time through the race, as we all probably were.”
“And then towards the end I had mega pace. So a couple more laps and I would have had Charles,” he noted, having finished just six tenths of a second behind his teammate. “So that’s positive right now in the next race. I know where we need to pick up and improve on. And I know that we could be fighting for podiums moving forward.”
Additionally, when asked about the racing, he briefly replied: “It was good.”
Strategic challenges
Coming back to Ferrari’s race strategy at the 2026 F1 Australian GP, Hamilton explained that the team will review their decisions after the race, despite believing they achieved the best result possible against the quicker Mercedes.
“I don’t have mixed emotions about it. As I said, we got a third and a fourth. I think ultimately the Mercedes were quicker than us. And that’s probably the positions or the results, the maximum result that we were going to get today. I think we can definitely go and look and see whether or not stopping would have been better.”
He added: “I definitely thought when I saw both Mercedes going, one ahead of me, one behind me, I thought we should have come in or at least one of us should have come in and covered. But we’ll go and have a look and see what we could have done better.”
Battling Mercedes on the race start
Despite lacking qualifying pace compared to Mercedes, the Ferrari duo bounced back and challenged their rivals at the start of the race. Charles Leclerc claimed the lead going into Turn 1, while Hamilton joined the top-three battle a few laps in.
Speaking of the race start, Hamilton shared, “The start was awesome. I felt great. It made it a little bit easier when I had no one ahead of me. So that was a positive.”
On whether this promising start gives him confidence moving forward, he said: “We’ve just got to keep pushing and we’ve got to bring upgrades and keep developing, which I know the team is working hard on to make sure that we can compete. We’ve got to look and see where we’re losing. It looks like we’re losing in a straight because I think we’re just as quick as them through corners. So the car is good. We just need to see. They [Mercedes] have something on straight line speeds. So that’s something we need to figure out. But I have no doubts that we can do that.”
Hamilton’s verdict on the new generation
Although the 2026 F1 Australian GP provided only the first real on-track glimpse of the 2026 regulation changes at full-race pace, drivers have already formed mixed opinions.
Hamilton, on one hand, sees the new generation of cars in a positive light, as he reflected: “I personally loved it. I thought the race was really fun to drive. I thought the car was really, really fun to drive. And I watched the cars ahead. There was a good battling back and forth. So far, so good.”
However, on the other side, other drivers such as Lando Norris and Max Verstappen remain critical.
“I don’t know. You have to ask them,” said Hamilton when asked why this may be. “For me, I thought it was awesome. But again, they’re all further down the line with 20 cars ahead of you. It may seem different, but in my position, I thought it was great.”
