Lewis Hamilton could stand to benefit from a shift of balance in popularity at Ferrari, with the Scuderia’s former race engineer Rob Smedley revealing that his contacts in Italy have put him “on a pedestal.”
The Briton has begun to revel as a driver for the Maranello-based squad, taking his first victory in the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix last weekend.
Hamilton’s run of good form has been a world away from that of 2025, when he suffered the first podium-less season of his career, amid struggling with the team’s SF-25 car.
The difficulties of the car were tackled more successfully by teammate Charles Leclerc, but at present, the Monegasque is the one that is struggling.
And speaking on the High Performance Racing podcast, Smedley played down the likelihood that Hamilton will become the dominant driver, but believes that he is in the driving seat to be the highest-scoring.
“You can’t say that Lewis is going to spank him every single weekend, that would be ridiculous,” he said.
“But if you look at the balance of performance between the two drivers… and this is a Lewis now that is corralling the team around him.
“Everything that I see when I read the Italian newspapers or I talk to my mates in Ferrari, they all love him. They’re all putting him on a pedestal. He’s getting better and better and better.
“I think the balance, at the minute, it’s not very nice for Charles.
“Lewis is way ahead of him over the last few races.”
Smedley believes that the situation will even out and “it will be more balanced towards the end of the season,” but concluded that: “But I just t hink that Lewis will nick it.”
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