Lewis Hamilton’s body language after the Austrian Grand Prix suggests he may finally have made Ferrari breakthrough

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Lewis Hamilton matched his best result for Ferrari at the Austrian Grand Prix as he finished P4 behind teammate Charles Leclerc.

The Monegasque driver scored his and Ferrari’s fourth podium of the season as his teammate is still waiting to stand in the top three in the famous red colours. Hamilton has now broken his personal record for the longest streak without a podium in his career.

Hamilton lacked pace at the Austrian Grand Prix as he finished 29 seconds behind race winner Lando Norris. He told race engineer Riccardo Adami over the radio that he had to work on that after he was left in no man’s land, almost 10 seconds behind Leclerc.

But the seven-time champion did have reasons to be happy with his team’s performance at the Red Bull Ring. Ferrari rushed upgrades to improve the floor, but despite this, it did give them the performance they needed to leapfrog Mercedes and Red Bull in the pecking order.

Hamilton achieved his best qualifying result for Ferrari, excluding Sprints, with P4. He was lucky not to be taken out by Kimi Antonelli’s collision with Max Verstappen, but kept a level head to beat George Russell and score 12 valuable points.

Lewis Hamilton is ‘slightly more connected’ with his Ferrari after the Austrian Grand Prix

It seemed that Ferrari’s upgrades had a positive effect on the SF-25 and the drivers’ morale. Hamilton has been struggling with the car and there are still some things to iron out, but he may have made a breakthrough.

Journalist Lawrence Barretto noticed a change in the 40-year-old’s body language. Speaking via F1 Nation, he noted that Hamilton was ‘slightly more connected’ to the car.

“OK, 20 seconds is a significant margin, but I think there was a slight change in body language from both Charles and, particularly Lewis, this weekend,” he said.

“It just feels like Lewis is slightly more connected to the car, particularly in qualifying. That’s why he felt stronger there, he almost got P2.

“And in the race, he’s still struggling with balance, but he was still P4, so I think that shows that there’s actually quite a lot of headroom for when he gets that car comfortable.

“He said something really interesting to me earlier in the weekend when he said every race he goes to is new to him, and obviously it’s not new in the sense of he’s not been there.

“But it’s new for him with the new team and the car that he’s with. And it is effectively, we have to keep remembering that he is starting from scratch with this team, in terms of learning the quirks of how they go about things.”

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Ferrari are now beginning to address Lewis Hamilton’s problems since joining the team

It has not been the start to life at Maranello that the Brit, the Tifosi, or the Italian media would have expected. But the Austrian GP was a step in the right direction, as Ferrari are back into second place in the constructors’ championship.

The team hopes their updates will stand them in good stead to progress throughout the remainder of 2025 and into next year. Hamilton has been urging Ferrari to focus on 2026, and it seems the Maranello outfit are finally listening.

Ferrari will address Hamilton’s problems with understeer, which have ‘annoyed’ him since his move from Mercedes. Hamilton’s balance with the car has improved with the team’s latest updates, which will be a sign of relief after ‘suffering’ with the issue for months.

It may be too late to salvage any title hopes in 2025, but optimism is still high for the Brit to achieve greatness in red. James Vowles says there is still life in Hamilton at Ferrari, as the 40-year-old targets the championship in 2026.