Jacky Ickx sees Ferrari’s big behind-the-scenes change making Lewis Hamilton ‘competitive again’

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Jacky Ickx is taking “great pleasure” in seeing Lewis Hamilton competitive again in the 2026 F1 season, especially as he is taking the fight to teenager Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Hamilton stomached a self-proclaimed “nightmare” first term with Ferrari in 2025, which he even dubbed his “worst season ever” in Formula 1. The 41-year-old only finished seventh in the standings and failed to reach a Grand Prix podium for the first time in his 19-year career.

His 20th season on the grid in 2026 has seen a reborn Hamilton arrive thanks to the 2026 F1 regulations and the changes that Ferrari have made behind the scenes, however. The seven-time champion arrived at the Belgian Grand Prix ranked third in the standings on 147 points.

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Jacky Ickx feels Ferrari having a ‘family atmosphere’ again is helping Lewis Hamilton

Antonelli leads the 2026 F1 drivers’ championship ahead of round 10 of 22 at Spa this week with 179 points, ahead of his Mercedes teammate George Russell with 154 and Hamilton in third. Ickx finds it “such a beautiful story” that a 41-year-old Hamilton is now in a position to fight a 19-year-old Antonelli for the title, too, but he feels it is too early to say he can win it.

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Six-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Ickx also thinks Hamilton’s form – including taking his first Grand Prix win for Ferrari in Barcelona – is the result of team boss Fred Vasseur adopting the same sort of family atmosphere now that he saw when he once drove for the Scuderia in F1.

Ickx told Gazzetta dello Sport: “I’ve always thought Vasseur needed trust to build a winning project. It’s great to see things going well, and I feel like there’s a family atmosphere in the team now, like the unity we had when I drove for Ferrari.

“Seeing Hamilton competitive again is a great pleasure… It’s too early to say [whether he can win the F1 title], but enjoying a 41-year-old driver competing against a 19-year-old is already incredible. Who could have imagined such a beautiful story?”

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Ickx enjoyed a couple of spells driving for Ferrari in Formula 1, after racing with the Scuderia during the 1968 season and then between 1970 and 1973. The Belgian also scored six of his eight Grand Prix wins and finished second in the 1970 standings with the Maranello natives.

Ferrari were enduring a barren run during Ickx’s time in Maranello, having not won the title since 1964. Niki Lauda ended Ferrari’s drought when he won the title in 1975, and Hamilton will hope he can now end a similar dry run given Kimi Raikkonen won their last title in 2007.

Vasseur has made lots of changes behind the scenes to try to put Ferrari in a position where Hamilton or teammate Charles Leclerc can finally bring the F1 drivers’ championship back to Maranello again. Along with the family atmosphere that Ickx has noticed this year, Vasseur is encouraging Ferrari’s engineers to take more risks with their ideas for the SF-26’s upgrades.