Lewis Hamilton's second Formula 1 season with Ferrari has started a lot better than the first one ended.

Hamilton needed just two attempts in 2026 to get himself the grand prix podium that eluded him 24 times last year. And while he's been helped by having a more competitive Ferrari, he's been a much better match for Charles Leclerc so far than for much of last year.

In fact, Hamilton is on average fractionally ahead (by just 0.017 seconds) of Leclerc in the four qualifying sessions held so far in 2026. He was two and a half tenths slower on average last year.

That's a very small sample size to draw a conclusion from. But regardless of results, Ferrari's belief, as Fred Vasseur told The Race in an exclusive interview ahead of the April gap, is that Hamilton made a real step over the winter.

Asked if he had to put an arm around Hamilton's shoulder during a bruising 2025 campaign, Vasseur told The Race: "We spoke all season about this.

"It's true that it's easier to do it in December and to have a look at the global picture more than to discuss race by race, because race by race, you are more attached to details.

"It started very well and then it was really up and down. But he was also the first one to understand where he has to push and the connection with people takes time.

"It's strange because you are spending 24 weekends together, but on the other hand, it's not the right place to learn each other during the race weekend, it's better sometimes [away from the track].

"I think he did a proper step during the winter."

Vasseur felt a lot of that was simply because Hamilton is now "much more integrated" at Ferrari, having spent all his F1 life with McLaren and Mercedes - repeating his prior admission that he'd "underestimated" the timeline of that integration prior to Hamilton starting.

He added: "The feeling that [Hamilton] has today [is] to lead the project. To be there at the beginning.

"When you go in the simulator in June and you say, 'OK what about the suspension for next year?' and we ask the drivers, 'What do you feel what do you want to do?' and when you have the feeling that you are the origin of this, you are much more confident [than] when you have the feeling that someone else doesn't matter, who is the someone else [who] decided for you.

"He also has this feeling today that he's there from the beginning of the project, which is, from a psychological point of view and a technical point of view, really helpful."

Asked if Hamilton's 2025 season made Vasseur doubt the move, he said he was "more convinced and more focused on the fact that we have to help Lewis to put everything together and to put him in the right place, then the performance is not there".

That's because "he always had laps when he was doing the good job".

Field spread factor

In explaining why Hamilton's 2025 wasn't as bad as the results sometimes made it look, Vasseur raised an interesting point that can be used when analysing Hamilton's 2026 so far.

"We are in a competitive world where the last number of seconds can make a huge difference," Vasseur said.

He pointed to Hungary last year as an example of this, as Leclerc and Hamilton were separated by 0.151s in Q1 and 0.247s in Q2.

Yet that 0.247s Q2 gap was the difference between Leclerc advancing to Q3, where he went on to take pole, and Hamilton being knocked out in 12th place and being consigned to a tough race in the middle of the pack.

Fast-forward to any of the four 2026 qualifying sessions so far and even if Hamilton had ended up 0.247s slower than Leclerc, he would still never have been lower than seventh on the grid.

Take Miami last year as a good example of a typical 2025 Hamilton weekend too. The high of a sprint race podium was followed by the low of being dumped out in Q2 (again in 12th) just a few hours later. And that was only because of a 0.058s deficit to Leclerc.

So, with how the pecking order currently is - pending how upgrades and rule changes shuffle the pack from Miami this weekend - there is a more built-in margin for any pace deficits not to be punished as much as they were in 2025 among the top teams.

That's not just logic you can solely apply to Hamilton of course - Red Bull's second drivers would have benefited from a bigger field spread in 2024 and 2025 too! - but it's something to be factored in as the sample size grows.

It is also worth noting that Hamilton was close to Leclerc's pace in both Melbourne and Shanghai last year too, two circuits Leclerc has said are among his weakest.

Suzuka was the first place last year where Hamilton was a clear step behind Leclerc throughout the weekend and that was the same in 2026, even if the gap between them was smaller.

He's certainly been giving the outward impression of someone more at home with a team that was so alien to him 12 months ago, even if having what's been on average the second-fastest car, versus a tricky, inconsistent and underwhelming 2025 Ferrari, will have helped that.

So the true test of what a better-integrated Hamilton can do is yet to come, but there are undoubtedly more genuine signs of positivity for Hamilton-Ferrari than the last time F1 resumed after a long break.