Smedley shares what former Ferrari colleagues are saying about Hamilton amid F1 resurgence

Rob Smedley has given his take on Lewis Hamilton’s turnaround from a podium-less 2025 season to winning with Ferrari, explaining how former colleagues at the famous Italian marque “absolutely love him” and are “putting him on a pedestal”.

Hamilton endured a challenging first season in red, which ended with a string of Q1 exits and a battle for points, but he has come back fighting this year – aided by a winter reset, Ferrari “moving mountains” behind the scenes, and a new generation of car that he has found more enjoyable to drive.

After back-to-back P2 finishes in Canada and Monaco, Hamilton went a step further by claiming his first Grand Prix victory for Ferrari in Barcelona, beating rivals Mercedes with an aggressive three-stop strategy amid baking temperatures.

Speaking on the High Performance Racing podcast after the race, former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley, who spent around a decade at Maranello during the 2000s and 2010s, gave his thoughts on Hamilton’s breakthrough win, as well as the impact his resurgence is having on the squad.

He also suggested that Hamilton might be at the start of a “Michael story”, referring to the legendary Schumacher, who strung together an incredible run of five successive titles with Ferrari across the noughties, having been a leading figure in their so-called “dream team”.

“Everybody’s very pleased,” Smedley said of the response inside Ferrari. “I’m on lots of chat groups with all of my old colleagues and they’re all literally over the moon with Lewis – they just love him.

“We talked about this, [that] this could be a Michael story, of how Lewis… If he can get on top of the car, and he can lift the team, and he can start winning races, and he can guide them towards World Championships, they will absolutely love him.”

As for how hard Hamilton has worked to get to this point, and his emotions post-race, Smedley added: “He puts so much effort in, right? People always misunderstand Lewis, because of the shell that he’s created around himself with his public persona.

“All the guys, funnily enough, Max [Verstappen], Lewis, Michael, Sebastian [Vettel], all of those guys who are greats, they work harder and put more of themselves into it to get to the positions that they’re in.

“When you put yourself into anything, especially winning a Grand Prix, when you put all of yourself into it and you keep failing, but you keep coming back, and you keep trying... Eventually when it happens, it’s like an outpouring of emotions.”

Smedley added that he expects Hamilton to continue his positive trajectory as the season develops, even if team mate Charles Leclerc – who has conversely experienced a difficult run of events – gets his own campaign back on track.

“If you look at the balance of performance between the two drivers, and this is a Lewis now that is corralling the team around him… Everything that I see when I read the Italian newspapers or I talk to my mates in Ferrari, they all love him, they’re all putting him on a pedestal,” said Smedley.

“He’s getting better and better and better, and I think the balance… At the minute it’s not very nice for Charles, Lewis is way ahead of him over the last few races. What will happen is it will be more balanced towards the end of the season, but I just think that Lewis will nick it.”