Lewis Hamilton feeling ‘fired up’ for return to Formula 1 action at Miami Grand Prix amid Ferrari quest to catch Mercedes

Ferrari driver eager to get back racing but aware Ferrari need to “double” the development of rivals to bridge the gap to Mercedes; watch F1’s return at the Miami Grand Prix this weekend, with practice at 5pm and Sprint Qualifying at 9.30pm up first on Friday

Lewis Hamilton says he is “fired up” for the resumption of the 2026 Formula 1 season as Ferrari bid to start closing the gap to championship leaders Mercedes.

After a bruising 2025 campaign, Ferrari had begun F1’s new era of rules in more promising fashion prior to the sport’s enforced April break and recorded podium finishes, once with Hamilton and twice with Charles Leclerc, in the year’s opening three races.

Five weeks on and, speaking ahead of the sport’s return to action at the Miami Grand Prix this weekend, Hamilton said: “Everyone’s had a chance to go over what happened in the first three races.

“Everyone’s had more of an intense time to work on refining the car.

“Just feel fired up for the second stab at it.”

Ferrari resume the season second in the Constructors’ Championship to Mercedes and with Leclerc and Hamilton third and fourth in the drivers’ standings respectively behind the Silver Arrows’ Kimi Antonelli and George Russell.

While they, along with most other teams, are set to debut a significant car upgrade when track action begins in Miami on Friday amid ongoing work to try and close their deficit to Mercedes, the Scuderia are also hopeful of being among the teams granted engine upgrade opportunities in the season’s first looming ADUO (Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities) window.

Hamilton believes they are not only down on power compared to Mercedes but possibly the new Red Bull-Ford power unit too.

And asked if he feels they can bridge the gap to the front without any engine upgrades, Hamilton said: “I think it’s a tall order.

“Firstly, I’m really grateful for all the hard work. I’ve been back at the factory every week during this break and seeing how hard the team has been working in bringing an upgrade. It’s an immense amount of work that goes on to build these components, and to the quality that they make them as well, so incredibly grateful to everyone back at the factory for that.

“I think there is a gap between us power wise, compared to the Merc and also probably the Ford.

“To close that gap, that means we have to do double that development each time of others, which is a really tall order.

“You have to assume everyone’s developing at a similar sort of rate because it’s new rules, so if a team brings a tenth, we need to bring two. If they bring two, we need to bring three or four.

“That’s a lot. I think we do just have to keep pushing to at some stage to be able to close the gap on the engine side.”

Hamilton reveals issues that compromised his Japanese GP

After a strong fourth place right behind Leclerc in Australia was followed by the long-awaited breaking of his Ferrari podium duck at the 26th attempt for the team in China, Hamilton experienced a more difficult Japanese Grand Prix weekend and eventually finished only sixth.

But he revealed analysis in the days after the Suzuka race pointed to issues with his car that left him “eight to nine tenths” on power on the straights.

“I think it’s been good for everyone to step back and have a look at and analyse their first few races,” he added.

“In the last race, I felt that I was down on power. We did a deep dive and it wasn’t the engine, but the system altogether, several things coming together to lose us eight to nine tenths on the straight-line power.

“We’ve got on top of that, worked on the simulator and factory every week. We’re training a huge amount and I feel very fresh for the weekend.”