F1 News: How Ferrari built Lewis Hamilton dream team by going 'external'

Hamilton looking serious and Vasseur smiling with a red, yellow and black background — Photo: © IMAGO

Ferrari

How Ferrari built a Lewis Hamilton F1 dream team by looking outside Maranello

Things are starting to fall into place at Ferrari

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Saturday 20 June 2026 20:57

Lewis Hamilton's resurgence at Ferrari could be down to the F1 team's recent change in attitude to hiring external experts.

Hamilton joined the Italian F1 marque for the 2025 campaign but it took the seven-time champion quite some time to find his feet.

At last weekend's Barcelona Grand Prix however, the 41-year-old returned to winning ways, picking up his first grand prix victory with Ferrari and ending his 686-day win drought.

Article continues under video

As a result, the British F1 legend is now just 41 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, with both the Scuderia and the former Mercedes star now serious contenders for the title.

Ferrari have had a much better 2026 season, especially where Hamilton is concerned, after he had to endure one of the most painful seasons of his esteemed career in 2025.

The Scuderia have now built a machine which is seemingly more able to compete with the frontrunners in the sport and more importantly, is a car that Hamilton was actually able to contribute to.

And it seems that the innovation and genius propelling the Maranello-based squad to the front of the pack this season is in part thanks to talent that Ferrari signed from rival teams.

Vasseur shifts Ferrari's attitude to external signings

Regardless of whether it has helped or hindered them in the past, Ferrari have made a habit of relying on in-house talent to fix performance woes instead of attempting to poach experts from across the grid.

McLaren on the other hand seemed to have signed what feels like nearly all of Red Bull's former employees, including Max Verstappen's longtime race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase.

But Vasseur has changed that at Ferrari.

Hamilton himself evidently came from the Silver Arrows instead of within the Scuderia's junior ranks like Charles Leclerc, who even after nine F1 campaigns, is yet to have challenged for a championship.

In fact, Italian publication Autoracer have pointed to two recent external hires for the creativity behind some of the changes made at the Scuderia which have helped boost Hamilton back into championship contention.

First there is former Mercedes man Loic Serra.

The Frenchman joined the Silver Arrows in 2010 and after settling in, worked alongside Hamilton during Mercedes' most successful years in F1 between 2014 and 2021.

Serra has been credited as a key player in the team's dominance of the hybrid era that saw Mercedes add seven drivers' titles (six of which were won by Hamilton) and eight constructors' trophies to their cabinet.

Vasseur has also been a fierce defender of Serra's value to the Scuderia and as team principal, was instrumental in changing the team's conservative attitude to looking to external experts to help bolster Ferrari's ranks in time for Hamilton's arrival.

Are rival stars behind Hamilton's Ferrari resurgence?

A key factor in helping Hamilton to secure a dominant victory in Spain last time out was Ferrari's rear wheel innovation.

Ahead of the Barcelona GP, Ferrari unveiled state-of-the-art wheels in collaboration with Japanese supplier BBS, and the wheels are said to have offered Hamilton and the Scuderia a significant advantage thanks to their ability to keep tyre temperatures much lower (an obvious advantage at tracks like Barcelona).

To Autoracer, this innovation reminded them of Serra.

"The new rims, which helped to limit rear tyre wear on the SF-26s in Barcelona, inevitably bring to mind Ferrari’s technical director, Loic Serra. A former Mercedes and Michelin employee, the Frenchman is one of the leading experts on tyres and their integration with the car," a recent article read.

"This has long been one of Ferrari’s weakest areas and, not surprisingly, was also considered internally to fall short of the best standards. It is precisely for this reason that Frederic Vasseur decided to take action to strengthen it, bringing Loic Serra to Maranello in October 2024, followed by other personnel from rival teams.

"Over the past two years, we have seen decidedly more aggressive technical choices in the mechanical department, marking a clear break with the past – decisions that clearly bear the hallmark of the quiet French engineer. However, the benefits of the know-how acquired from outside are also becoming apparent in other areas."

They also pointed to relatively new hire Franck Sanchez for his advances, having previously worked as the chief aerodynamicist at Sauber between 2021 and 2025.

Sanchez has since switched allegiances to the Scuderia and as the head of aerodynamic development, has been backed to perform for Ferrari by Vasseur.

The Frenchman's decision to look to external players to help improve the team's chances of returning to the top of the championship appears to be paying off, but what's even more important is that it may have altered the Scuderia's view of poaching rival talent for good.

Autoracer concluded by reporting that in general, the entire team is making much greater use of external expertise than in the past, noting that as a result they are, 'improving areas in which Ferrari had often maintained an overly conservative approach.'

F1 ANALYSIS: Teams are now in a race to the bottom after new rule shambles

Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

View full biography

F1 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 2026 regulations Loïc Serra