What changed
Lewis Hamilton has completed his 400th Formula 1 grand prix and is performing strongly again in the 2026 cars. He is level with Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc after a difficult stretch from 2022 to 2025, when he won no races in 2022, 2023 or 2025.
Hamilton remains Formula 1’s record-holder for race wins and pole positions, with seven world championships. His Ferrari contract is believed to end next year, while he has said he wants to race until F1 returns to Africa, which is not expected before 2030.
Why it matters
The interesting part is not whether Hamilton is an all-time great. That argument is already settled by the numbers and by the races that made his career. The live question is whether the 2022-25 dip was an age-related decline or a bad fit with the ground-effect cars.
The early answer is encouraging for Hamilton. The current cars suit him better, and he is again matching Leclerc inside Ferrari. That matters because a driver can look finished when the machinery exposes the wrong weaknesses, then look dangerous again when the technical rules move back toward familiar territory.
The informed speculation is that Hamilton can remain competitive for several more years. Fernando Alonso is still performing at a high level at 45, and Hamilton is 41. But continuing beyond next year will require a new Ferrari contract, and there is no certainty yet that he will get one.
That leaves Hamilton racing against two clocks: the calendar and the car beneath him. If Ferrari keeps giving him a platform to match Leclerc, his target of reaching at least 2030 remains imaginable. If not, the 400th race may come to define the scale of his past more than the length of his future.
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