F1 Results: Lewis Hamilton is coming and the title race is on

Lewis Hamilton smiles with a background of his Ferrari car — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Title Battle 2026

F1 results do not lie, Lewis Hamilton is coming and the title race is on

Hamilton is only just getting started

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Sunday 12 July 2026 20:45 Updated: 21:30

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Mercedes are one-two in the F1 drivers' championship and first in the constructors' championship but with Lewis Hamilton breathing down their necks they should be worried, very worried.

And to be fair, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is. He said recently of Hamilton: “I’d rather not fight with him for a title. Because I know what he’s capable of. If he smells blood, he goes.

“I’ve seen it many years where suddenly the Lewis Hamilton train started to go and then it’s very difficult to stop it."

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Now to lay out some context. Hamilton is third in the championship for Ferrari with 147 points - just 32 points behind series leader Kimi Antonelli.

Formula 1 Drivers' Championship (Top 4)
Position	Driver	Team	Points
1	Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes	179
2	George Russell	Mercedes	154
3	Lewis Hamilton	Ferrari	147
4	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	108

Mercedes may slightly have the fastest car at this stage of the season, but it isn't reliable. You only need one guess to know the only driver to have scored points in every race this season. Yes, he has seven world championships.

They are not just minor points Hamilton is racking up too. The 41-year-old's last five races have resulted in four podiums including his first ever Ferrari victory at the Barcelona Grand Prix.

Put simply, Hamilton isn't going away in this title fight, and Wolff says what he does because he knows just how ruthless Hamilton can be when there is a title to be won.

Rosberg and Vettel could not live with Hamilton

Hamilton trailed Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel in 2014 and 2018 respectively when looking right up against it in a championship battle, before blowing his opponents away in the second half of the season.

Finishing 2014 with six wins out of seven, he saw off his Mercedes team-mate by 67 points (with the caveat of that stupid double points Abu Dhabi finale where Rosberg retired.)

Nico Rosberg (left) and Sebastian Vettel (right) were both victims of Lewis Hamilton comebacks

In 2018 at the halfway point of the season at the British Grand Prix, Hamilton trailed Vettel in the championship. He then won eight of the final 11 races to win the championship by an astonishing 88 points.

Hamilton's triumph over Vettel in 2017 though is the important highlight given after the Monaco Grand Prix, the German had 25-point lead in the championship, and as Martin Brundle put it, 'Right now, it's beginning to look like [Vettel's] Ferrari have the upper hand in every respect.'

'Hammertime' sealed incredible 2017 comeback

Even with nine races to go Vettel still had a 14-point lead, but then Hamilton won five of the next six races in such a commanding fashion that with two races go to, he had the luxury of finishing ninth in Mexico to secure a fourth world championship.

By the end of the season, his gap to Vettel was a huge 46 points. That was some turnaround.

The whole point of this is 2014, 2017 and 2018 on paper look like Hamilton walkovers throughout the season, yet for much of the respective campaigns there were actually hard-fought championships taking place.

It's just that once Hamilton gets into 'Hammertime' mode in the second half of the season, nothing can stop him.

Mercedes have early Hamilton warning

Right now he is a little adrift of where he has been in previous championship battles, but that doesn't matter. If Ferrari give Hamilton a winning car, there will be nothing stopping the 41-year-old legend chomping into that Mercedes advantage race by race.

Wolff and co have been warned. If they don't have a good head start on Hamilton by the summer break then the likes of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell may well be new notches in Hamilton's trophy cabinet alongside Rosberg and Vettel.

Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

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