- Ferrari Title Bid Fades, But Hamilton Says Top-Three Finish Would Be ‘Huge Achievement’
Lewis Hamilton has effectively shifted his 2026 Formula One target from challenging for the world championship to catching former Mercedes team-mate George Russell, arguing that a top-three finish could still represent a significant achievement for Ferrari after its difficult 2025 campaign.
The seven-time world champion heads into this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix sitting third in the drivers’ standings on 191 points, 20 behind Russell and 101 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
Hamilton’s recalibration follows a difficult recent run in which Ferrari’s early-season title ambitions have steadily faded.
Antonelli has pulled clear after winning the last two races, while Hamilton has not stood on the podium since the British Grand Prix in early July.
A retirement at the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, caused by a brake-related problem, was Hamilton’s first non-finish of the season and left him more than 100 points behind the championship leader.
The scale of the gap has led Hamilton to acknowledge that catching Antonelli now appears extremely difficult.
“Well, I mean, he’s 101 points ahead of me,” Hamilton said ahead of the Azerbaijan weekend. He noted that Antonelli had gained more than 40 points on him over just two races while Ferrari had been working to recover only small amounts at a time.
Hamilton said his focus was now on helping Ferrari hold second in the constructors’ standings while attempting to close the gap to Mercedes.
That makes Russell the more immediate target. Hamilton is 20 points behind the Mercedes driver, who occupies second place in the championship with 211 points, while Lando Norris is only five points behind Hamilton on 186.
The battle for second and third therefore remains considerably tighter than the contest for the championship lead.
“If I can battle with George and somehow get ahead of him, which would be very difficult as Mercedes are the leaders… if at the end of the year, managing to stay in the top three, even second, I think would be a huge achievement for us as a team,” Hamilton said.
His comments represent a notable change in emphasis after entering the season with expectations that Ferrari could contend more consistently at the front. The objective now is less about recovering the championship lead and more about extracting the maximum possible result from the remaining rounds.
Hamilton has also pushed back against an increasingly negative interpretation of Ferrari’s season.
The team endured a winless 2025 campaign and finished fourth in the constructors’ standings, while Hamilton completed his first season in red without a podium for the first time in his Formula One career.
By contrast, Ferrari have won races in 2026, with Hamilton taking victory in Spain and Charles Leclerc winning at Silverstone.
“We’ve been fighting, we’ve had wins and podiums, the team have done an incredible job in terms of bringing upgrades, so you really have to acknowledge the good things that we’ve done this year,” Hamilton said.
His argument is that Ferrari’s current difficulties should be judged against how far the team has progressed from last season rather than solely against the championship it increasingly appears unlikely to win.
The 2026 campaign has therefore become partly a test of whether Ferrari can consolidate that improvement through the final third of the season.
Execution has nevertheless remained a recurring concern. Hamilton said Ferrari had often shown encouraging pace early in race weekends but had failed to convert that potential into the strongest possible results because of operational and strategic problems.
He has previously criticised aspects of qualifying execution and expressed frustration over delayed team orders during the Dutch Grand Prix.
“I think there’s positives to take out of the last few races, it’s just they haven’t been, I would say, the best in terms of execution and we’ve not had the best results,” Hamilton said.
He nevertheless insisted that Ferrari had identified areas where it could improve and said he was optimistic heading into Baku.
The challenge is to turn that confidence into cleaner race weekends at a stage of the season where further mistakes could quickly alter the battle for second and third.
Russell, however, believes his own form is improving. The Mercedes driver has said his race pace has become substantially stronger since the summer break after spending much of the year trying to adapt his driving style to Formula One’s new 2026 technical regulations.
He said he now feels capable of fighting for victories again, potentially making Hamilton’s pursuit more difficult.
The Mercedes driver has also refused to abandon the championship mathematically, despite trailing Antonelli by 81 points.
Russell said he would continue trying to win every race and secure pole positions until the title becomes mathematically impossible.
His priority, however, remains improving performance ahead of 2027, when the chassis and power-unit regulations are expected to remain relatively stable.
For Hamilton, Azerbaijan therefore begins a different kind of championship battle from the one Ferrari envisaged earlier in the season.
Antonelli’s advantage has pushed the title increasingly beyond realistic reach, but Russell remains close enough for second place to be a tangible target while Norris and Leclerc remain threats behind.
With nine rounds still to run, the final standings could still materially reshape perceptions of Ferrari’s season.
A second-place drivers’ finish and a strong constructors’ result would not erase Ferrari’s failure to sustain a championship challenge, but it would represent clear progress from 2025.
Hamilton’s argument is that this progress should not be obscured by recent disappointments or by Antonelli’s increasingly commanding lead.
The remaining races will determine whether Ferrari can turn those positives into a convincing end to the season, or whether operational shortcomings continue to leave performance unrealised.
