F1's 'sad' rule changes could deliver Lewis Hamilton's eighth title...if Ferrari can shed loser gene

The 2026 F1 car is not going to be fun to drive.

That's not our guess based on nothing, that's what the drivers are telling us. From Aston Martin's Lance Stroll calling the new regulations 'a bit sad' to Charles Leclerc straight-up predicting that he won't enjoy next year's Ferrari, the people who have to sit behind the wheel are telling us that they're gearing up to have a bad time.

That's not a great early sign for fans' prospects of seeing a blockbuster title fight, but it might not be the worst thing for some of the drivers on the grid.

You know who are quite good at adapting to vastly changed conditions, and who handle a sub-optimal car better than others? Those would be your experienced drivers, the hypertalented few who have enough in their mental rolodexes to pull out a few extra tricks to adapt.

You're probably guessed by now, but Lewis Hamilton is very much on that list. Ferrari should be placed to deliver one of the better versions of the 2026 car – call it a 6/10 compared to the fours and fives some teams will produce – and their veteran driver will be in his 20th season.

Who stands in Hamilton's way? Ferrari

It's impossible to have seen everything in F1, but 20 years on the grid gives you a pretty good grounding. If someone's going to be able to process what the new car's giving him faster than their rivals, why not Hamilton?

Providing he still has some gas in the tank as he enters his 40s, the first year of the new regulations should be F1's best chance to crown an eight-time world champion.

Unfortunately, this all relies on Ferrari breaking some long-standing habits and not falling over their own feet.

It's hard to say this without it coming across needlessly unkind, but throughout Hamilton's entire F1 career, Ferrari have become losers. They haven't become slow. They've become losers.

Something has permeated that team that makes them get into promising positions and then completely throw them away. Things happen to the Prancing Horse that just don't happen to other teams, as if they're deathly afraid that success would ruin them.

Excluding the non-canon, Covid-impacted 2020 season, Ferrari haven't finished outside the top three in the constructors' championship since 2014. They've been the second best team in six of those seasons, and are on course to do it again. No other active team has a stretch that long...but they haven't converted that pace into a title since 2008.

Seven times, a Ferrari driver has finished as the championship runner-up since Kimi Raikkonen claimed the team's last drivers' title in 2007. Seven times, the team's finished second in the constructors' standings since they last got to lift the big trophy.

That speaks to a profound issue of getting over the line when they're playing for all the marbles. Strategy calls go wrong. A bad pit stop here, a qualifying misstep there. Either Ferrari are cursed, or Hamilton's internal crusade to reshape the team in his own image – a ruthless, winning image – is the only thing that can save them, and take him to title number eight.

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