TREMAYNE: How Hamilton climbed out of a well of despair and rebooted himself in 2026

F1 Hall of Fame journalist David Tremayne looks at how Lewis Hamilton put a difficult year behind him and found his smile again this season.

Mar 22, 2026 9:41am UTC

Hall of Fame F1 JournalistDavid Tremayne

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - AUGUST 02: Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari on stage during

If you’ve been looking out this season for that guy we saw in Hungary last year in the red Ferrari racesuit – the one with the hollow eyes and hangdog expression – forget it. As Lewis Hamilton indicated trenchantly in Australia, “that person’s gone, so you won’t see that person again.”

He looked (and sounded) very much like a different driver and his old familiar self.