A statement drive through the streets of Monte Carlo
Lewis Hamilton crossed the line 4.२ seconds behind race winner Charles Leclerc on Sunday, and for the first time in eleven races the seven-time world champion stood on a Formula 1 podium. The Ferrari driver’s second place at the Monaco Grand Prix — his best result since joining the Scuderia from Mercedes last winter — was the kind of drive that has been promised for months but rarely delivered. What followed in the cool-down room was rawer than the result itself.
“It feels like I’m having to remind people who I am,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 after stepping out of the SF-25. “I’ve been written off this year. Every weekend somebody has an opinion on whether I can still do this. Today was for me, and for the people who never stopped believing.”
The 41-year-old started fourth and held station through the opening stint before undercutting Oscar Piastri’s McLaren at the first round of pit stops. A late-race safety car, triggered when Yuki Tsunoda clipped the barrier at Sainte-Devote on lap 62, briefly threatened to compress the field, but Hamilton’s restart out of the Rascasse was clean enough to keep Lando Norris at arm’s length over the closing six laps.
A season defined by scrutiny
Context matters. Hamilton arrived at Ferrari on a reported three-year deal worth in excess of $100 million per season, the most scrutinised driver transfer in the sport’s modern era. The opening seven rounds of 2026 produced three finishes outside the points, a Q2 elimination in Bahrain, and a public exchange with team principal Frédéric Vasseur after Imola in which Hamilton conceded he was “still learning the car on Sunday afternoons.” Italian outlets had begun questioning whether Ferrari’s decision to displace Carlos Sainz was a strategic miscalculation. La Gazzetta dello Sport ran a back-page splash in May headlined “Il Dubbio” — The Doubt.
Monaco answered some of that, though Hamilton was careful to frame the result in narrow terms.
- It is his first podium in 24 grands prix, stretching back to the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix with Mercedes.
- He has now finished on the Monaco podium in nine of his last twelve appearances at the circuit — a record matched in the current era only by Max Verstappen.
- Sunday’s points haul moves him to sixth in the drivers’ championship, 41 points behind team-mate Leclerc and 88 behind series leader Piastri.
Vasseur, speaking on the pit wall after the chequered flag, called the performance “the Lewis we signed.” The Frenchman has spent much of the spring deflecting Italian media pressure, and his relief was unmistakable. “People forget what it took for him to win seven titles. The talent does not disappear in six months because a car behaves differently. Today you saw a driver who understood every corner.”
What this means for Ferrari’s summer
The wider picture for Ferrari is more complicated than a single result suggests. The team trails McLaren by 119 points in the constructors’ standings and has yet to win a race in 2026. The SF-25 has shown competitive pace in low-downforce conditions but has struggled with tyre degradation at the high-energy circuits — a problem unlikely to be solved before the European triple-header concludes in Austria next month. A significant aerodynamic upgrade is expected for Silverstone, where Hamilton has won a record nine times.
For Hamilton personally, Monaco shifts the narrative without resolving it. He has spoken openly this season about the psychological toll of public commentary, and about the gap between how he is perceived and how he is performing in private testing. The podium gives him a tangible reference point — a result he can carry into the second half of the campaign without having to rely on memory or argument.
“I’m 41, not 81,” Hamilton said, smiling for the first time in the press conference. “I know what I can still do. The car is coming. The team is working. People can write what they want — I’ll let the next twelve races speak.”
The next of those races is the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on 14 June, a circuit where Hamilton has won six times but where Ferrari finished fifth and seventh last year. The reminder, as Hamilton framed it on Sunday evening, is not finished. Monaco was a chapter. The argument continues.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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