There was a moment in the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix where it truly felt like Formula 1 was back watching Lewis Hamilton in his prime.Hamilton was hunting down the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in his scarlet Ferrari, pursuing an aggressive three-stop strategy to try and win. The seven-time world champion breathlessly radioed his race engineer, Carlo Santi, to ask what lap times he needed to succeed. Santi happily reported he was already meeting them.That moment en route to win 106 of his F1 career — and, more importantly, win number one with Ferrari — was a perfect snapshot into the 41-year-old’s 2026 revival following his miserable first season in red.But Hamilton’s gains were apparent long before Barcelona. Back-to-back podium finishes in Canada and Monaco at the races immediately prior had lifted him to second in the championship. More important than the results, though, was how he brimmed with confidence. The paddock took notice.“People are happier the better the racing goes on-track, and he seems in a good place,” said Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton’s longtime Mercedes teammate, who now drives for Cadillac.“It’s good to see. He’s shown that he hasn’t lost any of his ability.”A quick car is always a good starting point. This year’s Ferrari has already proved itself superior to the 2025 model, which failed to win a single race and was fourth-quickest for much of that year, trailing McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes. Without its engine performance deficit to Mercedes, there’s a case for the SF-26 being the best car on the grid in terms of aerodynamic performance.Significantly, this year’s Ferrari was a car that Hamilton ensured bore characteristics that better-suited his driving style. By the time he’d first arrived at Ferrari in early 2025, that year’s model — produced in the final year of a mature set of design rules — was already on a defined development path. He couldn’t tailor it to what he wanted.“I went from a season in a car that I inherited, that I had no input to, to a car that I’ve had input to,” Hamilton explained in Barcelona, when asked about the biggest contributor to his performance upswing this year.“There’s elements of the car that I’d asked for and the team listened, which has been great.”Besides Ferrari’s improved performance, the basic characteristics of this season’s all-new cars are also regarded by many as a reason for Hamilton’s step forward.F1 cars are now 30kg lighter and have slightly smaller dimensions, making them more nimble and agile, characteristics that were thought to suit Hamilton better than the heavy, wide previous generation of cars. His driving style has always thrived on late braking, something easier to accomplish with less bulky cars.The moment Hamilton won the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP, his first in F1 for Ferrari. (Clive Mason / Getty Images)“This is a car that is different to the previous era — (of) stiff cars bouncing (and) not easy to feel,” said Toto Wolff, Hamilton’s old boss at Mercedes. “This is back to more conventional driving in terms of aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics.”Hamilton’s Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc had a similar theory. “These cars are a bit more natural to him compared to the previous ones, which were a little bit strange to drive,” said Leclerc. “These small differences make a big difference.”But Hamilton didn’t see it that way, saying that while he was “less happy” with the generation of cars used from 2022 to 2025 that were built around the ground effect aero principle, he pointed out he “still won races and was able to still pull out great races.”Hamilton highlighted his victory at the 2024 British GP as an example. “If your driving style doesn’t suit a generation, you don’t get a win,” he said.The shift for 2026 is not down to a single positive change in the car, Hamilton stressed, but “a combination of many things, moving parts coming together and working together in synergy.”“We all can always elevate and be better,” Hamilton added. “I’ve arrived this year with a much better mentality, fitter, and a much better approach. (It’s) a combination of all those things.”Hamilton has always prided himself on his fitness. He moved to a plant-based diet in 2018, and puts himself through stringent winter training programs, aware of the extra dedication it requires to stay in peak condition in his 40s. There’s even a particular mountain in Finland that he has routinely gone back to through the years as a way to gauge his fitness, always striving to go higher and farther than the previous year.After his poor 2025 campaign, Hamilton felt a need to push even harder. He referred to a “mission” when reflecting post-race in Barcelona, saying his drive to revive started on Christmas Day.“The training I put in was harder than I’ve ever experienced, to keep myself in good shape,” Hamilton said, then revealing that he’d been carrying an unspecified injury “for months” in the early part of last year as a result of a private testing crash he’d had in one of his first outings for Ferrari, also in Barcelona.One of the clearest external changes for Hamilton going into 2026 was in his engineering group at races.In January, Ferrari announced Hamilton’s 2025 race engineer, Riccardo Adami, had been moved into a new role. Hamilton and Adami appeared to have moments of tension through their first season working together, most notably in Miami when, while waiting for a decision on Ferrari team orders, Hamilton told him to “have a tea break while you’re at it!”Hamilton said in Monaco that he and Adami “actually worked relatively well together.” But he did add that his engineering setup this year was “a million times better than it was last year.”He noted the challenge in dissecting a driver’s feedback on car performance and building that understanding with an engineer. This had been strong at Mercedes with Peter Bonnington, who was Hamilton’s race engineer from 2012 to 2024, and through all his title success at the team.Carlo Santi on the podium at the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP. (Mark Thompson / Getty Images)At Ferrari, this area has improved through Hamilton’s work with Santi, who was due to serve as his new race engineer on an interim basis, only for the pair to immediately hit it off and establish a more lasting partnership. In Monaco, Hamilton said that Santi felt like “my Italian Bono – he’s a bit of an OG, he’s an older guy that’s been around the block. He’s very calm.”Santi’s influence was evident both during the Barcelona race — when he gave clear, concise feedback to Hamilton, as well as words of encouragement to gee him up when hunting down the Mercedes cars — and afterward, when he was picked to be Ferrari’s team representative to collect the constructors’ trophy on the podium.Sharing that moment with Santi was significant to Hamilton.“He’s very quiet,” Hamilton said. “You could tell it’s hard for him to express his emotions. He’s just smiley, and I’m giving him these big hugs and pulling him in, saying ‘thank you.’ I like to think that this has probably reignited the love that he has for being an engineer, as he has done for me as a driver.”When he first arrived at Ferrari in early 2025, Hamilton had seen a need for some changes within the team, which he made clear to the team principal and his old friend, Fred Vasseur. Uttering phrases such as “Rome wasn’t built in a day” when discussing a team that had only narrowly lost the 2024 constructors’ championship had seemed odd at the time, but Hamilton felt strongly enough to keep on expressing his thoughts on the matter.“Me coming was a big shock to the system because I am very vocal,” said Hamilton. “If I see something that I don’t think is right, I push very hard. That’s at the core of who I am and I’m relentless with it.”Hamilton was grateful to Vasseur for being receptive to his feedback. “Which I’m forever grateful for,” Hamilton said. “Because this (Barcelona win) wouldn’t have happened without those changes.”Another significant — and very public — shift in Hamilton’s life this year has been his relationship with Kim Kardashian.Reports emerged in January that Hamilton had started dating the reality TV star, with the pair pictured attending Super Bowl LX together. Hamilton was initially reluctant to discuss the matter, saying at preseason testing: “I don’t comment on those sorts of things. That’s private life.”But after Kardashian attended the Monaco GP to support him — a visit that included one instance of accidental towel theft — Hamilton addressed their relationship publicly for the first time. He said it was “amazing to have good people around you and good people supporting you, and she does that for me every day.”While some racing purists may roll their eyes at the ‘Hollywoodification’ of F1 in such a high-profile relationship, the positive impact a happy life away from the track can have should not be quickly dismissed.Kim Kardashian in a crowd above Lewis Hamilton in the Ferrari pits at the 2026 Monaco GP. (Jakub Porzycki / Pool / AFP / Getty Images)After highlighting Hamilton’s hard work, and his changes this year, Wolff also pondered Kardashian’s impact.“Maybe the girlfriend helps,” Wolff said. “It helped me, to have a partner, to have a stable family life. And they seem to be getting on really well. But I think it’s all of those factors put together — the emotional, personal and professional perspective. If they’re in a good place, you win.”All these elements have coalesced for Hamilton, setting up his return to form. But, crucially, it also helped reignite the self-belief that was so clearly absent at times last year. In the pits of his disappointment, when he called himself “useless” and suggested Ferrari should consider another driver.“I’ve rebuilt my mind to this point, to get myself back to where I was,” Hamilton said after the Barcelona win. “It’s a great feeling.”It’s not been the work of a moment, nor down to a single, sweeping change. But the seeds Hamilton had sown much earlier are now starting to bear fruit. And this revival has placed him back towards where he spent so much of his career — at the top.