Lewis Hamilton is throwing away the F1 title and you can't blame Ferrari

An edit of a picture of Lewis Hamilton looking surprised — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Analysis

Lewis Hamilton is throwing away the F1 title and you can't blame Ferrari

Hamilton is chucking points away

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Monday 27 July 2026 20:58

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I know Kimi Antonelli has been leading this championship forever, but hear me out - Lewis Hamilton is blowing this F1 title.

For most of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, Hamilton was favourite to take pole position and a win to put serious pressure on Kimi Antonelli in the championship.

Antonelli and Mercedes were struggling for pace and Ferrari were making hay on a track very well suited to masking their power unit deficit to their rivals.

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Come Sunday evening and Antonelli is celebrating a podium having started seventh and Hamilton is down in fifth wondering what on earth had happened.

Ferrari took stick for this, team boss Fred Vasseur admitted as much saying: “Today we made too many mistakes. Poor starts, wrong tyre calls and botched pit stops.”

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Ferrari's main error in Hungary

Now that includes Charles Leclerc too, but it's the botched pit stops that are important here, as a late virtual safety car saw Hamilton sacrifice position to Verstappen and Antonelli for a set of softs to end the race.

Verstappen stayed out, as did Antonelli, who was originally behind Hamilton having just pitted in racing conditions but edging marginally ahead once the Ferrari driver emerged from the pits.

Despite having grippier and fresher rubber, Hamilton couldn't pass Antonelli and he too claimed he thought the pit-stop was, as Vasseur put it, botched.

Post-race Hamilton said: "Yeah, I definitely don't think we should have taken the stop. But the the call came literally just before the pit lane entry, and I didn't have time to debate."

So Ferrari copped the blame for somehow slipping further back to Antonelli in the championship to 50 points heading into the summer break.

In truth Ferrari did make a mistake pitting Hamilton, but it wasn't an obvious one and it's certainly not the reason that after 11 rounds the seven-time world champion is a gap of two race wins behind the teenager who replaced him at Mercedes.

Hamilton has chucked away a lot of points in recent races. In fact this was the third race in a row he has picked up a five-second penalty from the FIA stewards.

Hamilton's rookie error at Silverstone

The first was at the British Grand Prix when he clumsily reacted too early to the race start. This saw him serve his penalty in a pit-stop and come out behind George Russell. He then spent the next 14 laps squabbling with his former team-mate and Max Verstappen.

Although he passed both and moved up to second after Kimi Antonelli's mechanical issues. Once a safety car was called out with four laps to go, Hamilton only had a 12 second gap to Russell when he pitted for soft tyres, a big mistake when he came out behind his British compatriot and the race ended under the safety car.

Had he not picked up his penalty he would have avoided being stuck behind Russell and Verstappen and gapped a big enough distance to pit without losing points. Second place was lost behind race winner Leclerc, so that's three points down.

Lewis Hamilton has been racking up penalties in the last three races

Clumsy Russell collision

In Belgium, punting Russell off the road on the opening lap saw him serve another five-second penalty in the pit-lane under VSC conditions after running second behind Leclerc.

While Leclerc emerged battling for the lead for the race, Hamilton dropped behind Piastri into sixth. While he wasn't held up too much by Piastri after passing him late in the race, he finished less than six seconds down on Max Verstappen in fourth.

You can't do too much hard maths here as neither Verstappen nor Hamilton would have been racing at 100 per cent in the last few laps given they had little reason to push at this stage.

But without the five second penalty, a podium was certainly possible and that's another three points dropped for Hamilton.

Hamilton blew Hungary win

Now for Hungary, Hamilton didn't just lose two points after his five-second penalty for speeding in the pit-lane saw him drop to fifth behind team-mate Leclerc, he lost much more.

Not through mistakes on Sunday but after qualifying, when having stuck his Ferrari on the front row of the grid, on his lap back to the pits he blocked Oscar Piastri resulting in a three-place grid drop down to fifth.

Hamilton landed in hot water with the FIA after impeding Oscar Piastri

Granted, Ferrari were too late telling him that Piastri was on a hot lap, but Hamilton could have taken precaution anyway by keeping out of the way of any potential challengers. Replays even show him checking his mirrors for Piastri. He had zero reason to be in the McLaren driver's way even if it was a genuine accident.

From the front row, Hamilton's race changes and he would have been a strong contender to win. Given what actually happened, he threw away 15 points at the Hungaroring.

Hamilton has lost 21 points

So factoring in Hamilton's errors in these past three races, it's easy to argue he has cost himself a huge 21 points. Now, if Hamilton did win in Hungary, it's difficult to predict how Antonelli's race plays out so sticking with that he claims third, Hamilton should really be only 29 points behind him.

F1 standings without recent Hamilton penalties
Pos	Driver	Team	Points
1	Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	219
2	Lewis Hamilton	Scuderia Ferrari HP	190

Given Mercedes issues with reliability, an Antonelli DNF is not a surprise in 2026 so Hamilton could really be applying pressure to the Italian in the championship.

Alas, it's a more comfortable (but far, far from title over) 50 points. Penalties (and I'm not including Monaco) are severely costing Hamilton this season.

Ferrari have made mistakes, but even with those, the 41-year-old is a big reason why Antonelli and Mercedes have been able to build a summer break buffer.

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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