LEWIS HAMILTON CHASES A SIXTH SPA WIN THIS WEEK

Hamilton Sits Third with 147 Points and One Win

Lewis Hamilton is third in the 2026 Formula 1 drivers championship with 147 points, one win and five podiums through nine rounds. He spent Monday morning walking into race week with his headphones on, the same locked in focus Scuderia Ferrari keeps showing off before Spa.

That understates it. Hamilton finished fourth in Australia, third in China, sixth in Japan, sixth in Miami, second in Canada, second in Monaco, first in Spain at Barcelona, fifth in Austria and third at Silverstone. Nine races, points in every single one. Kimi Antonelli still leads with 179, George Russell sits second with 154, and Hamilton trails the top by 32 points with Charles Leclerc fourth on 108 and Lando Norris fifth on 97. Ferrari has not won a title with Hamilton yet. It has stopped losing him races, and the constructors table backs that up. Ferrari sits second with 255 points, 78 behind Mercedes at 333, after Leclerc's Silverstone win alone closed 22 points of that gap in one afternoon.

Small Stone After Small Stone

Team principal Frederic Vasseur has a phrase for what changed. He told Motorsport Week the turnaround came small stone after small stone, not one fix, crediting a car that is genuinely better than last year's and a driver who rebuilt his process around it. That framing only means something next to what came before it.

In 2025, his first season at Ferrari, Hamilton did not finish on a single grand prix podium. His best result all year was a sprint race win at the Chinese Grand Prix. A driver with 105 career wins went twelve months without a trophy that counted. This year he already has a Barcelona win, five podiums, and Leclerc just won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone to prove the car is a genuine podium weapon for both garages. Ferrari's hillclimb outing at Goodwood with three separate cars the same week showed a team suddenly comfortable putting itself in public. A year ago that confidence did not exist.

Michael Schumacher Still Holds a Piece of Spa, Barely

Hamilton has six career wins at Spa, tying Michael Schumacher for the most in Belgian Grand Prix history and making him the most successful active driver at the circuit. The victories span 2015 through 2024, including the win he inherited after George Russell's post race disqualification that year. No other driver on the current grid has more than two.

That record is the actual reason a headphones photo two days before a race weekend is worth a second look. Spa is not a track where average cars sneak into the podium picture. Eau Rouge and the Kemmel straight punish anything down on power, and Hamilton has solved that combination more times than anyone left in the sport. A six win history at one circuit is not luck repeating itself nine years running. It is a driver who reads that specific piece of asphalt better than the rest of the field.

Eau Rouge Does Not Read Standings

The Belgian Grand Prix runs July 17 through 19 at Circuit de Spa Francorchamps, round 10 on the 2026 calendar, and the forecast already calls for rain across all three days. That matters more at Spa than almost anywhere else on the schedule, since the Ardennes weather can soak one sector while another stays dry, and Hamilton has historically thrived exactly when that chaos shows up.

The counter is fair. Antonelli leads by 32 points with a Mercedes that has topped the constructors table all season at 333 points, and Russell is one race win away from the top spot himself. Ferrari's 78 point deficit in the constructors standings is real ground, not a rounding error, and closing it takes more than one strong weekend at Spa. Ferrari's rise is real but it is a rise from third place, not a coup. Puma's apparel tie to the team, visible again in ASAP Rocky's Suede 94 launch this month, shows a brand riding cultural momentum faster than championship math currently supports.

None of that changes what happens if Spa runs true to form. Hamilton at 147 points with a Barcelona win, six career victories at the one circuit that has always fit him, and a Ferrari that just beat Mercedes outright at Silverstone. A seventh Spa win this weekend does not hand him the championship. It hands him the outright record alone, ahead of Schumacher, in a season where his own team principal says the whole operation is still being built one stone at a time.