Lewis Hamilton enters his 20th season in Formula 1. After a rather disappointing first campaign with Scuderia Ferrari, he is optimistic for a better year. Ahead of the F1 Australian GP, Hamilton is excited for the 2026 season whilst pointing out possible difficulties.
Hamilton feels “younger than ever” after 20 years in F1
With the 2026 Australian GP, Lewis Hamilton is entering his 20th season in Formula 1. And the end of this season, he will have almost 400 race starts to his name.
“I don’t feel like this is my 20th year,” Hamilton says, “I feel younger than ever somehow. I feel very fresh. Whilst he [Arvid Lindblad] says he’s 18, I feel like I’m 18 as well. It’s all in the mind, and physically I feel great.”
Not only Hamilton feels great, Scuderia Ferrari feels great, too.
Ferrari in a good place as a team ahead of Australian GP
Lewis Hamilton states that he is much happier in the team now compared to last year.
“We’re leaving behind the bad and moving forward with the good. We’re sharp, prepared, and we know what we need to do.”
With everyone working hard in the factory, and delivering optimistic results during the testing days, Hamilton says that the obvious goal is to win.
Maximising each F1 weekend and focusing on performance is what they are working for. Hamilton hopes his hard work pays off at the Australian GP.
“Our goal [is]: to maximise on every opportunity, to be hopefully fighting in the top group, hopefully in the first races.”
New F1 regulations will be the most challenging
Going into the 2026 season, Formula 1 faces many regulation changes. This ushers in a new era in Formula 1.
Hamilton has been trough five F1 regulation changes but this one is the biggest one he has witnessed.
Previously, Hamilton has expressed his concerns about the new regulations. He says that not only the Australian GP but that “this [learning about the new regulations] is a bit of a test each weekend.”
Furthermore, he says that deployment is the biggest challenge as it is different on each track. Hamilton argues that they probably will not know up until almost the end of the race how deployment will affect coming out of a corner after overtaking.
Additionally, Lewis Hamilton goes into detail how deployment can affect certain corners during the F1 2026 Australian GP.
“There can be a big difference between deployment, of a second. If you don’t lift in one corner, for example Turn 6, Turn 5 here. If you take it flat or if you lift, it has a massive compound effect through the rest of the lap. You can do a good lap but you could be a second down because deployment is off.”
This will not only be the biggest challenge for the drivers, as they have to figure out optimising deployment, but for the teams as well.
