Antonelli’s lead of 50 points is certainly an impressive one for the Mercedes youngster at the half-way point of the year but not insurmountable if one of the chasing pack behind him in the standings can string a run of strong results together with up to 12 races still to come this season.
So what do Hamilton – and potentially team-mate Charles Leclerc, who is 31 points further back – need to keep Ferrari in play for a first drivers’ title in 19 years over the next three-and-a-half months, while the team aim to crank up the pressure on Mercedes in the constructors’ chase too…
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Cut out the mistakes
Hamilton personally made clear when F1 broke for summer in Hungary that he had one clear goal for when the season restarted.
Although he regained second place in the standings from former team-mate George Russell in the final double-header before the break, Hamilton was left frustrated by the errors – and subsequent penalties – that had started to become far too frequent for his liking.
One in-race penalty apiece at Silverstone (false start) and Spa-Francorchamps (colliding with Russell) was followed by two more in as many days in Hungary. The first came after qualifying for blocking Oscar Piastri, which the Ferrari pit wall took the blame for and which cost Hamilton a crucial front-row berth, before the race saw him penalised for pit-lane speeding.
Finishing only fifth on a weekend that had originally offered so much promise for Ferrari led a rueful Hamilton to admit that “ultimately these last few races have been costly with mistakes from myself”. He described the first half of the season – which was headlined by his first Ferrari win in Spain – as having been “ok” but “not perfect from my side”, before adding: “I’ve really got to work hard to try to figure out how I can do better in the second half.”
He also resolved to “work hard to not give them [the stewards] any opportunity to give me any more penalties moving forwards”.
While both Antonelli and Russell can point to more points lost through Mercedes unreliability than Hamilton can stewards’ penalties, in a title race where the seven-time champion needs to make 50 points up from here just to be back on level terms, he cannot afford to give away any more points so cheaply for small, but costly, infringements.
Ferrari must out-develop rivals
Ultimately a sustained title challenge for either Hamilton or Leclerc will largely depend on how successfully Ferrari manage to develop the SF-26 car between now and the end of the season.
Having gone over 18 months without a race win to June, two victories in the five races before the summer break pointed to undoubted progress and Ferrari were generally the most consistent challenger to Mercedes over the first half-season of the sport’s new regulations.
However, the last race in Hungary – when Lando Norris ended up producing a dominant win in an upgraded McLaren despite Ferrari having looked the team most likely to deliver that kind of front-running on Friday – underlined that they aren’t the sole rivals to Mercedes for wins.
So their challenge is to not only out-develop Mercedes but McLaren and Red Bull, who have shown flashes of improved form recently, too.
Team principal Frederic Vasseur said after Hungary: “The most important thing will be to be able to keep the pace in the development.
“McLaren did a good job for a while, but they don’t have exactly the same philosophy because they are bringing a big package. For sure each time they bring something, they are making a huge step. We have a different approach, trying to bring parts every race.
“We have to keep this momentum because there are still 12 races to go. It’s a lot. We have a room for improvement on the chassis everywhere and we have to keep this pace.”
Ferrari also have a second ADUO engine upgrade to deploy amid suggestions it will be a more significant than the first, which was introduced at the Austrian Grand Prix in June.
Mercedes, ranked as having the second-top engine behind Red Bull in the first ADUO assessment window, also have one upgrade to introduce this year should they wish.
Hamilton has consistently focused on the need to improve their power relative to his old team and Vasseur said: “We know that we have to improve on the engine side and we will do it. The inertia on the engine is much higher than on the chassis.”
Keep points advantage over team-mate
Hamilton resumes the season with a 31-point buffer over fourth-placed Leclerc in the standings. It was a 28-point advantage in the Monegasque’s favour after 11 races last year, which underlines the improvement that Hamilton has made in his second season in red despite his recent frustrations.
There were signs in the races before the break that Leclerc was finding his way with the SF-26 after a difficult run of results earlier in the summer when incidents and a lack of pace proved costly. He won at Silverstone and outqualified Hamilton in three of the four races before the break, edging him back ahead in their Saturday head-to-head.
But there was little to choose between the pair on pace still and Hamilton was the faster of the two in Hungary before his three-place grid penalty knocked him off the front row and put him on the back foot for the race.
Hamilton, of course, has to beat everyone if dreams of an eighth world title are to be realised this year but keeping Leclerc at arm’s length in the standings could be advantageous if Ferrari really were able to take things down to the wire.
Vasseur consistently batted off presumptive and theoretical questions in the first part of the season about whether team orders might be needed later in the year if only one driver was in realistic title contention.
While it would be highly unlikely for the Scuderia to make an early call to back one over the other anytime soon, being the Ferrari driver ahead in the points the longer the season wears on could have added significance for the closing rounds.
Make experience count
How much of an advantage could be Hamilton’s far greater title-contending (and winning) experience over his nearest rivals in the standings prove to be if his challenge gathers pace?
The comparison between the top two alone is certainly stark in that respect.
Antonelli, who remains a teenager for one more week, is in his second season of Formula 1 and his first with a title-challenging car.
Hamilton is 41 years old and in his 20th season on the grid. He has won a joint-record seven world titles in F1, while also being involved in three other championship fights that went down to the wire.
Even Russell, who at 28 is eight years team-mate Antonelli’s senior, is in the first title-challenging season of his eight-year F1 career.
Leclerc, who turns 29 in October, has also not yet experienced a season-long title challenge. Of the other world champions in front-running cars who do know what it’s like to go the distance, reigning title winner Lando Norris is 91 points back on Antonelli and four-time champion Max Verstappen 110 points adrift.
So Hamilton holds a unique experience edge over the most-likely contenders, although whether that will count for much over the remainder of the season remains to be seen.
Antonelli has made few sizeable missteps this season to this point – including a stunningly faultless drive to victory around wall-lined Monaco in June – while the Italian won almost every junior championship in which he competed before F2.
Ferrari also need to be operationally fault-less
Ferrari too will likely further have to raise their game to overturn what stands as a 72-point deficit to Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship. Although, as Frederic Vasseur pointed out in Hungary, they did outscore the Silver Arrows in all three races prior to the summer break – by a total of 26 points.
Still, there is obviously room for improvement, particularly if Mercedes get on top of the unreliability that has clearly cost them a much bigger lead to this point.
On Ferrari’s side, the Hungarian GP was a case in point with Hamilton left questioning his third pit stop under a Virtual Safety Car which dropped him back behind Antonelli and Max Verstappen. While he blamed himself for speeding in the pit lane, he was still right that the perhaps-unnecessary stop “opened up the door” to the infringement in the first place.
Vasseur described Ferrari’s whole execution of the race as “very poor”, although felt it was the exception rather than the rule for the team’s in a strategic sense so far this season.
“Where do we have to improve? If I draw a conclusion based on Hungary, I would say execution,” he said.
“But execution so far was probably a good one for us from the beginning of the season.”
The Formula 1 season resumes after the summer break with a Sprint weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix from Friday, with every session live on Sky Sports. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime
