Lewis Hamilton is confident Ferrari are “right in the fight” with Mercedes at the start of F1’s new era after an encouraging start to the season in the Australian Grand Prix.
Under pressure to deliver this year after a dismal 2025 campaign, when they finished fourth in the teams’ standings, Ferrari clearly posed the biggest challenge to title favourites Mercedes in Sunday’s season-opening race to finish third and fourth.
Charles Leclerc took the lead from George Russell at the start and then engaged in a thrilling duel with the eventual race winner over the opening 10 laps, while Hamilton ran close behind his team-mate all race.
Ferrari’s afternoon may have even played out even better had they pitted at least one of their drivers under an early Virtual Safety Car, although team boss Frederic Vasseur insisted they had “no regrets” about their strategy relative to Mercedes and were instead left encouraged by the SF-26’s pace.
And while conscious Mercedes, who particularly dominated qualifying, clearly do hold an early-season performance edge, Hamilton says Ferrari have plenty of reasons for optimism themselves.
“I’m generally really proud of the team,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
“They have done an amazing job to get the car to where it is. Of course, we are not as fast at Mercedes and we have work to do but we are right in the fight.
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Highlights from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix
“It was a really fun race and it felt good or me. A couple more laps and I would have had Charles, so I had great pace. Lots of positives to take from today.”
Hamilton had qualified only seventh after Ferrari battery deployment issues from Q2 had compromised his session but was quickly into the top three on Sunday as Ferrari’s expected strong starts brought their drivers into play at the front.
“All weekend I’ve been really strong,” said the seven-time world champion, who matched the best result of his 25-race Ferrari career so far with fourth.
“Qualifying didn’t show the true pace. We had a few problems through qualifying which meant I was further back than I should have been.
“We went into today and none of us really knew what the true pace would be but I felt great from the get-go.
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Charles Leclerc and Hamilton’s Ferrari’s rocket away at the start of the Australian GP
“There’s lots of positives but we have a lot of work to do to catch Mercedes but it’s not impossible.
“I believe we can close the gap. It’s not going to be easy, it’s got a lot of work to do because it’s quite significant, particularly on a single lap.”
“We need to find out whether it’s power, or battery power, but the cars are just as quick through the corners so we need to keep pushing.”
‘We have a fight on our hands with Ferrari’ – Wolff says Mercedes have company
Mercedes may have underlined their status as pre-season championship favourites by finishing first and second in both qualifying and the race at Albert Park but Toto Wolff said Sunday showed that his team are not out on their own.
“When it comes to Ferrari, before the race, people were saying, ‘well, you’re going to disappear in the distance, we’re looking at your long runs’. And that wasn’t the case,” said the Mercedes team principal.
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George Russell and his Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff were thrilled after securing a dominant pole in the season opener
“We knew that they were strong on the starts and that’s what happened. It was an out-and-out battle between Charles and George at the beginning. Kimi was a bit unlucky that the battery wasn’t on the level that it should have been. On either car, actually, to a certain degree.
“It was a three-way fight at a certain stage between the two Ferraris and George and eventually Kimi caught up. For me, the prevailing feeling is now we have a fight on our hands with Ferrari.
“The worry that we had was that it wasn’t exciting in terms of the fighting and the boost and the overtake modes made it actually quite interesting to watch, on a track that is particularly difficult for energy. So we’ll see how that goes in Shanghai.
“But most of all, there’s been a certain degree of contentment that Mercedes is back.”
Formula 1 heads to Shanghai for the first Sprint weekend of the 2026 season at the Chinese Grand Prix from this Friday, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime
