Lewis Hamilton headed to Ferrari 12 months ago in the hopes that the Scuderia would lead him to that elusive record-breaking eighth world title. Instead, they delivered him the worst season of his near-two-decade-long career.
Hamilton’s 41 now, and 2025 delivered the most humiliating statistic of his career: zero grand prix podiums. Not one. His sole victory was the China Sprint—not even a proper race. Jenson Button’s already floating retirement talk publicly. Oliver Bearman’s circling, with Ferrari insiders openly discussing him as the veteran GOAT’s replacement if the seven-time champion “continues to make a fuss.”
Hope Springs Eternal
But on the eve of the 2026 season opener in Melbourne, optimism is creeping back into Hamilton’s mind. The Brit went fastest of anybody throughout the recent Barcelona shakedown, quite the shock considering expectations were pretty low prior to the trip to Catalonia. Ferrari then followed that up with blistering lap times from teammate Charles Leclerc in the Bahrain test, prompting online betting sites to sit up and take note.
While F1’s live betting odds at Bovada won’t be available until the first race of the season in Australia officially gets underway, their world championship outright market certainly is up and running, and it’s the Ferrari duo that has been making moves. Before testing, Hamilton was considered a 40/1 long shot for that elusive number eight. Now, those odds have been slashed down to just 18/1, with Leclerc considered even more likely at 16/1.
But make no mistake about it, Hamilton is under pressure in 2026, perhaps more so than ever before. If Ferrari has developed a car capable of challenging and he remains off the podium, the knives will sharpen in Maranello. But he isn’t the only one. Let’s take a look at the drivers under the most pressure to succeed in the 2026 Formula One season.
Hamilton’s Swansong?
One year on, Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari looks like a historic miscalculation, rather than an inspired legacy play. Former teammate Jenson Button has already dropped the hammer, saying that 2026 could be Hamilton’s final season if performances don’t improve. “We’ll see Lewis back to his best, or a Lewis that’s maybe going to walk away,” the 2009 world champion said.
Ferrari has given Hamilton complete control over the SF-26’s cockpit design, addressing his complaints about feeling disconnected and too far forward last year. But control over ergonomics doesn’t guarantee pace. Oliver Bearman’s “insane basic speed” has Scuderia executives openly acknowledging he’s “an issue” for Hamilton—speculation that if the legend throws in the towel, his young compatriot will almost immediately get the seat.
This isn’t a gradual decline—it’s a seven-time champion confronting career mortality. The 2026 regs provide a definitive answer: was 2025 car-related, or is Hamilton simply finished? No margin exists for excuses with entirely new technical regulations. His partnership with Ferrari hangs precariously. Prove the gamble is justified or cement it as the greatest miscalculation in modern F1.
The Underdog Champion
Lando Norris won the 2025 world championship in thrilling fashion, mounting a comeback to overthrow teammate Oscar Piastri and fending off the relentless Max Verstappen to reign supreme. His reward for climbing to the mountain top? A position as a distant 8/1 afterthought, well behind 7/4 frontrunner George Russell and 9/4 four-time champion Verstappen.
Think about that absurdity—the reigning champion enters his maiden title defense as a lengthy underdog. Even Norris himself admits, “I completely agree with the bookmakers.” It’s the ultimate double-edged sword: finally shedding the “best driver without a title” label, only to face immediate questions about whether 2025 was a fluke.
Teammate Oscar Piastri matched Norris’s seven wins in 2025 and led the championship for three-quarters of the season. Then, the young Aussie was unable to find a podium, opening the door for British teammate-turned-rival. McLaren boss Zak Brown insists that Norris’s confidence is even higher than it was last term, perhaps with the knowledge that he can actually get over the line serving him in good stead. But with McLaren’s grid-leading pace now gone, will the champ be able to maximize inferior machinery and remain in title contention, just as Verstappen did last term?
Defending titles proves historically harder than winning the first, and the difficulty of the task at hand increases tenfold when you are no longer in the fastest car on the grid. If Norris isn’t competing for race wins, he’ll be considered F1’s equivalent of Buster Douglas. If he does compete, many will consider him the fastest pound-for-pound driver on the grid. There is no middle ground.
Piastri’s Haunting Collapse
Oscar Piastri held a 34-point lead over teammate Norris with just eight races remaining last term. Seven wins in the opening 15 races. A hundred points clear of Verstappen. Then the usually reliable Aussie cratered spectacularly—six consecutive races without a podium, finishing third behind the teammate he’d dominated for three-quarters of 2025 and the relentless outgoing Dutch champion that simply refused to relinquish his crown. The mental element behind such a collapse will surely take time to recover from.
Guenther Steiner delivered brutal career triage: if no 2026 bounce-back materializes, Piastri must consider leaving McLaren. Maybe even the Papaya outfit will push him out before if he refuses to walk. Many already consider Norris the golden boy.
At 24, this represents his prime shot at championship glory, even with the regulation overhaul and McLaren’s dominance over the rest of the grid no longer being a thing. Piastri is saying all the right things: “He’s not Superman, he’s still just Lando.” That’s fighting talk by a young driver determined to take the lead spot in his team’s garage before leading them into a world championship battle. But still, Norris enters 2026 as champion, while he enters as the guy who choked.
Australia hasn’t produced a world champion in 45 years. Is Piastri the man to end that lengthy drought, or does 2025’s collapse define him permanently? We saw his compatriot Mark Webber never return to contention after allowing the 2010 world championship to slip through his fingers to his teammate Sebastian Vettel. Is Piastri doomed to follow in his footsteps?
