Lewis Hamilton\u00a0has said he “never gave up hope” of achieving a victory with Ferrari after securing his first win with the Italian team at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The seven-time champion beat his former teammate\u00a0George Russell\u00a0to victory, showing superior pace to the Mercedes drivers and benefiting from a fortuitously timed Virtual Safety Car under which he made his final pit stop and consolidated his lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hamilton surprised the Formula 1 world ahead of the 2024 season when he announced he would leave Mercedes to join Ferrari at the start of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He endured a difficult first season with the Italian team, in which he failed to score a grand prix podium, and at one particularly low point after the Hungarian Grand Prix said Ferrari should consider a replacement driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The start of the 2026 season has seen a turnaround in form for Hamilton at Ferrari, with three podiums in the first six races before he secured his first Ferrari win — and the 106th of his career — on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“First, I have to start and say a huge grazie to everyone here, my team here at Ferrari, everyone back at the factory, Fred [Vasseur, team principal] for believing in me and bringing me to this team,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I started out with a dream last year, which seemed almost impossible during my time last year, but we never gave up hope, and the team just continued to lift me up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We made so many changes and we made so many improvements. And on top of that, I’ve got the greatest fan base a sportsman could ever ask for. And so, thank you. Thank you to everybody.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked by his former Mercedes teammate\u00a0Nico Rosberg, who was conducting F1’s postrace interviews, if this race was one of his best “feeling wise,” Hamilton said: “Oh, they’re all special in their own way, but this one, this one’s something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is, you know, I always watched Ferrari have all that success when I was younger, watching it on TV. And as I’ve been racing here [in F1], I’d always watch the screens and wonder what it’d be like to win in that car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And it’s come and everyone worked so hard for it. Everyone truly deserves it. So I’m forever grateful to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And this is just the first, I hope, of many, but great pit stops today. Great strategy. The car felt fantastic. Forza Ferrari!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lewis Hamilton\u00a0has said he “never gave up hope” of achieving a victory with Ferrari after securing his first win with the Italian team at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix on Sunday. The seven-time champion beat his former teammate\u00a0George Russell\u00a0to victory, showing superior pace to the Mercedes drivers and benefiting from a fortuitously timed Virtual Safety Car […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416215,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416214\/revisions\/416215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}