Lewis Hamilton admits life at Ferrari got off to a 'very hard' start

Seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton has spoken highly of Ferrari's positive start to pre-season testing, while also lamenting a 'very hard' start to 2025.

Hamilton joined Ferrari in January last year, in what was a link up between the most successful driver in F1 history and the most successful F1 team of all time.

However, the 2025 season did not go to plan for Hamilton, as he failed to pick up a single grand prix podium, and finished a mammoth 86 points behind team-mate Charles Leclerc in the drivers' championship.

He is hoping that 2026 will be different, with wholesale regulation changes sweeping into the sport which may allow Ferrari to challenge more closely with the likes of Mercedes and McLaren.

And as the F1 world scrambled to try and find out any clues about how each team may be shaping up at the first pre-season testing event of the year in Barcelona, Ferrari showcased brilliant reliability, completing over 400 laps across their three allocated days at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

On top of this, Hamilton also finished the week as the fastest man on track, putting in an unofficial time of 1:16.348 at the end of Friday's running to beat George Russell's previous best time set in the Mercedes on Thursday.

Following Friday's testing, Hamilton cut a positive figure, explaining that early impressions of the new SF-26 had been good, while also making a stunning admission about the start of his 2025 season.

"Honestly, it's been a really enjoyable week," Hamilton told F1.com, before going on to highlight just how different pre-season testing for 2026 feels compared to his preparations for his first year in red, which by the sounds of things, were not ideal.

"Last year I went to the first race and it was on the Sunday of the actual race was the first time I had driven the Ferrari and that was a very hard race," Hamilton said.

"So it’s good to have that experience and get that knowledge," he continued, pointing out just how valuable the Barcelona shakedown could prove to helping he and his Ferrari squad to adjust to the new regulations.

F1 TESTING RESULTS: Barcelona shakedown times as Hamilton roars back

How much can we read into the F1 Barcelona shakedown?

In truth, not too much. With F1 doing everything they could in order to try and keep the test private, not even 'official' lap times were released.

Even the ones that were confirmed by teams to be true won't be too representative given the early stage of testing we are at.

There are still six days of testing remaining in the pre-season, before the sport heads to Australia for the season-opening grand prix at the beginning of March.

However, what we did learn from the Barcelona shakedown is that all of the F1 teams that showed up seem to have remarkably good reliability given they only fired up their new power units properly for the first time last week.

Ferrari is certainly in that category. They managed to put in over 400 laps, while customer team Haas completed some mammoth stints with a Ferrari power unit.

Time will tell as to whether this reliability will also result in a car capable of challenging for world championships, however, with Ferrari and Hamilton under pressure to compete for regular race victories in 2026 and potentially beyond.

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