The Wrong Chase
Despite the great missed opportunity in Budapest, where a potential double win – or at least a probable double podium – turned into a fourth and fifth place under the checkered flag, everyone in the Ferrari environment is convinced they can compete for the World Championship with Mercedes. The red team principal Fred Vasseur, in particular, seemed confident of being able to snatch the lead in the Constructors’ Championship from the Brackley team: “Today is not a disaster for the championship – said the team principal to the microphones of Sky Italia after the race – we still scored more points than Mercedes and practically the same points as McLaren, but we could have done much more and it’s a shame”. If we want to consider these words sincere and not just superficial evaluations – and there is no reason to think Vasseur is not sincere – then we must assume that Ferrari really thinks it can make up 72 points on Mercedes in the next 12 GPs (assuming the number of races in the season remains the current one).
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All-in on Hamilton
Given that at this moment it still seems difficult to imagine world champions at the end of the year other than Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes, my impression is that in reality it would be easier for Ferrari to focus on the Drivers’ Championship rather than the Constructors’. First of all for a mere arithmetic reason: Hamilton is 50 points behind Antonelli, so there are 22 fewer points to recover to reach the top of the Drivers’ standings compared to what would be needed to catch Mercedes in the teams’ ranking.
A second aspect concerns the performance of the cars: on average the W17 still seems more competitive than the SF-26. The weak point of the silver arrows is reliability, but even in the last five race weekends, from Barcelona onwards, Ferrari has only clawed back seven points on Mercedes: an average of 1.4 points gained per GP which, however, after the summer should turn into a haul of 6 more points per race to close the gap created in this first half of the World Championship.
In the same period, instead, Hamilton has collected 16 points more than Antonelli, with a gain of 3.2 points per race. To win the Drivers’ Championship, the Englishman is called upon in the second half of 2026 to recover just over 4 points per GP on Antonelli. The trend is definitely closer for Hamilton alone than for Ferrari.
Generally then, it is difficult for the best car to lose the Constructors’ Championship; it has instead already happened several times that a driver in the best car did not win the Drivers’ title.
The Piastri Effect
Obviously the hypothesis of a comeback by Hamilton on Antonelli is anything but simple, but there are some aspects that could help the Ferrari cause.
First of all Hamilton’s experience contrasted with Antonelli’s youth: so far Kimi has been literally perfect, but what happened 12 months ago to Oscar Piastri shows how for a young driver, in his first world championship ‘rodeo’, it can become relatively easy to make unexpected mistakes under pressure when the big target starts to come into view. Of course, the many penalties Hamilton has received in recent races show that so far he has made more mistakes than Antonelli, but in Maranello the hope is that these lapses do not repeat after the summer. And Lewis has already reminded everyone that his performance usually improves in the second half of the season.
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The Role of Leclerc
The most delicate point of an attempted chase for the Drivers’ Championship undoubtedly concerns Charles Leclerc: the Monegasque is currently fourth in the standings and 31 points behind Hamilton, despite having always scored more than the Englishman in the last three race weekends. Asking him to help #44 would be a really huge sacrifice, especially since the chances of success of this comeback remain anything but high.
However, it is also true that we are at the halfway point of the World Championship and certain decisions must be made now, because waiting for the last 4-5 races of the year could be too late. No team on the grid can count on such a great mix of speed, experience, and talent in its pair of main drivers. Having a driver of Leclerc’s caliber to use as a ‘wingman’ would be a luxury that rarely a team has been able to afford in F1 history. Leclerc, for his part, could obviously feel it in his pride, but if he agreed to such an operation he could gain an almost unlimited credit within the Maranello team. And if in a year it were he who found himself closer to the top of the championship (a scenario far from impossible) he would have good grounds to ask for the team’s full support.
Russell and Divisions in Mercedes
Then there are the potential divisions within Mercedes: publicly Russell would never admit it – obviously – but it is not hard to imagine that in his mind, if he cannot win the World Championship, he would prefer a Hamilton victory to the triumph of his teammate Antonelli. The not-so-hidden cracks between the two Mercedes drivers could be another weapon to exploit for Ferrari, provided that the gain is maximized on a single front-runner.
McLaren and Red Bull Potential Allies
Finally, it is also necessary to look at the overall context of the championship: McLaren is growing and Red Bull is finding (albeit very slowly) a certain consistency in performance. Having more cars in the mix could make it more difficult for Ferrari to recover large amounts of points on Mercedes in individual Grands Prix – which is realistically what is needed to make a comeback in the Constructors’ Championship, unless you want to bet everything on a series of sequential retirements of the Mercedes – but, conversely, it could be easier to have different cars to ‘place’ ahead of Antonelli on the occasion of some less positive race of the phenomenal Bolognese talent.
In Conclusion
Realistically, it is very difficult for Maranello to think of finishing 2026 winning a World Championship, but if all-in it must be, it seems more sensible to aim for the Drivers’ standings, aware that in any case to achieve the feat a perfect second half of the season and a bit of good luck would be needed. But until you try concretely, it is impossible to succeed. And then, if we want to be honest, reopening the Drivers’ Championship could almost automatically rekindle ambitions also in the teams’ standings.
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