Should we have high hopes for Hamilton and Ferrari? F1 Q&A

Should we have high hopes for Hamilton and Ferrari? F1 Q&A

The 2026 Formula 1 season is nearly upon us and there are many questions to answer, following the biggest regulation change in the sport's history.

The chassis, tyres and fuel are all subject to new regulations, and we will have to get used to new terms, such as overtake mode, boost mode and active aero.

Last year's drivers' champion Lando Norris will be hoping that McLaren remain the dominant team, but Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull all looked strong in pre-season.

Before this weekend's season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your questions.

What can we expect from Ferrari this season? Is it possible to have high hopes for an eighth world championship for Lewis Hamilton? - Liam

There are two questions in one here, and the answer to one does not necessarily define the other.

It's self-evident that Lewis Hamilton can only fight for the title if his car and team are up to it. Until the season starts, no-one knows for sure whether that's the case, but the signs in testing were positive.

Most teams had the impression after six days in Bahrain that Mercedes and Ferrari were the teams to beat heading to the first race of the season.

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has been saying for some time that the first race will not define the season. He believes development will be significant enough that there will be a chance for the order to change through the year.

Of course, that could be both true, as well as a not very subtle way of taking the pressure off if Ferrari do struggle in Australia.

Even if the car is competitive, though, there have to be questions about Hamilton after his lacklustre performances in both 2024 with Mercedes and 2025 with Ferrari.

He addressed his difficult 2025, and his many negative comments, in an Instagram post recently, saying he was "re-set and refreshed" and admitting: "For a moment, I forgot who I was."

Can he recover his former level and take on Charles Leclerc if the car is competitive? Or has he simply lost a little of his edge as age - he is now 41 - has taken its toll?

The answer to those questions remains to be written.

Last season and before, Williams kept saying that their focus was on this year's car and the new regulations, yet they are late for testing and then turn up with an overweight car that is one of the slowest on track. How did they get the new regulations so wrong? - Stewart

Good question.

Williams team principal James Vowles has been saying pretty much since he joined the team in early 2023 that this season was the team's chance to make a big step forward in their ambition to return to the top of F1.

So, having finished fifth last year, ending testing with what appears to be the ninth fastest car was certainly not part of the plan.

Williams have hit a number of issues. Their car build was delayed, and that meant they missed the first pre-season test in Barcelona.

Even before then, there were rumours that the car was overweight. Vowles has not denied this is the case but has continually ducked giving a direct answer as to how much by.

While most teams are struggling to get to the weight limit - McLaren have admitted they are not there yet, for example - it seems Williams are an extreme case.

Why, is another good question. Certainly failing at least one of the mandatory impact tests and having to do remedial work to ensure they passed it will not have helped but won't explain everything.

If the Williams is as heavy as rumoured - up to 20kg over the limit - that's 0.7 seconds of lap time right there. In a tight midfield battle, that's enough to make the difference between being at the front and at the back, where they look to be.

Vowles says: "There are some bits of the car that are absolutely championship level. And there's other bits where we have a long way to go before we're there, including just getting the car built and finished as a polished article.

You only know your boundaries by absolutely pushing every boundary possible. I absolutely believe in what I would call intelligent failure. And you get there by effectively pushing the boundaries of what you're doing. And what we did was exactly that this year.

Vowles talks a good game, but after steady progress since he joined, albeit not without hiccups, this is his first major test.

Interesting reading about Arvid Lindblad and this might be a silly question but being 18, when did he pass his driving test? - Lin

New Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad - the youngest British F1 driver in history - has not yet passed his driving test. You may have seen this video released by the team last week., external

This is less unusual than you might think. Max Verstappen passed his test on his 18th birthday - more than six months after making his F1 debut. And Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli passed only six weeks before he started his first grand prix last year.

Why did Aston Martin go to Honda engines when the history and circumstances suggested this was risky? - Emily

Aston Martin signed their deal to become Honda's works engine partner in early 2023.

At the time, the received wisdom in F1 was that a team needed to have a factory engine deal to win the championship. The only time that had not been the case before then in the modern era was Brawn in 2009, and those were exceptional circumstances.

Since then, McLaren with their Mercedes engines have proved that it is possible to win the title as a customer, but Aston Martin did not know that at the time.

McLaren were also the team who suffered when Honda returned to F1 in 2015 underprepared. The pair split after three difficult years, but while Honda progressively improved following their switch to Red Bull, it was only in 2021 that they finally produced an engine that was absolutely competitive.

The same man was primarily responsible for both the McLaren and Aston Martin deals with Honda - Martin Whitmarsh, who used to be CEO of the Aston Martin team.

You might think that Whitmarsh would have been "once bitten twice shy" when it came to Honda.

But on the basis that Honda were winning with Red Bull at the time, and that this gave an ambitious team an exclusive works engine deal, it would be harsh to say that it was self-evidently a bad decision when it was made.

In hindsight, of course, it was very much a mistake. If Aston Martin still had a Mercedes engine, they would be in a much better place - although there are serious question marks about their car, too, right now.

Honda's situation is very reminiscent of 2015. A new engine that is down on power and weak at energy recovery.

After a decade in F1, and notwithstanding the hiatus when they thought they were pulling out and disbanded much of the engine department, how they've found themselves in this place again still seems incredible.

The angry, despairing look on team owner Lawrence Stroll's face in Bahrain said it all.

And for Fernando Alonso, who suffered the Honda at McLaren, it surely must be heartbreaking.

What are the chances of any midfield team joining the 'Big Four'? Major regulation changes always promise the prospect of it but it never seems to happen. - Joe

None, right now. There appears to be a gap of at least a second between the top four - McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari - and the rest heading into the season.

In a way, this is a disappointment, six years into the regulations that were aimed at closing up the field.

Those are a) the budget cap; and b) the sliding scale of aerodynamic restrictions that see the best teams permitted the least amount of research and development time and the worst the most.

Last year, these both seemed to be having an effect - the grid was more compressed than ever before.

But this year has proved that the baked-in advantage in know-how, resource, experience and expertise that the top teams built up over many years of bigger budgets is a long way from eradicated. It may never be.

What's the difference between overtake mode and boost mode? Surely if one driver activates overtake mode the other driver can activate boost mode to negate any benefit? - Leigh

The car can only ever deploy a maximum of 350kw of electrical energy, but there is a difference between boost mode and overtake mode.

Boost can be used by any driver at any time, but it comes out of the car's standard allocation of electrical energy. This is usually 8.5 megajoules (MJ), but it can change depending on circuit characteristics.

When a driver has overtake mode, they are allowed to recover more energy during a lap, usually 0.5MJ. So they can deploy maximum energy for longer.

Overtake mode is triggered when a driver is within one second of the car in front at a detection point, usually before the first corner. The driver can use it whenever they like for the rest of that lap.

It's likely this will be when the car in front has little energy so can't use boost to defend.

With the power-train changes, there is potential for greater differential in speed (for example, a car on full electrical deployment coming up behind a car which has no electrical power available). Does this present a greater risk of collision and, if so, how is the FIA managing this? - Ian

There is a greater risk of collision if one car goes into energy recovery mode while another is still going flat out on full power behind.

Because of this, the FIA has defined a ramp-down slope for the electrical energy so that it does not all shut off at once, to reduce such significant speed differentials.

Are the moveable aero parts disabled in wet conditions? - Anthony

Yes. The rules give the FIA discretion to disable the 'straight-line mode', where the front and rear wings open to reduce drag and boost speed.

The race director can choose between fully disabled - keeping both wings closed - or partially disabled, which means only the front wings open.

Source: BBC
Related Posts: Lewis Hamilton To Leave Ferrari Leclerc, Hamilton left frustrated as Ferrari’s troubles continue Ferrari Cut Ties With Zhou Guanyu As 2026 F1 Hopes Fade Ferrari all set to launch 849 Testarossa in India on March 14 – check out the specs and features India Opener Abhishek Sharma Adds Ferrari Purosangue To His Fleet Ferrari's Final Warning Ferrari Cries Foul Play Motor racing-Leclerc says Ferrari unlikely to win a race this season Ferrari, Lamborghini Rule Mumbai Streets On A Random Sunday, Locals Ask ‘Sab Bengaluru Praisers Kaha Gaye Ferrari chair to do community service over tax case