Ivan Capelli exclusive: "Open world championship, Hamilton can be reborn"

Ivan Capelli is part of the editorial team headed by Carlo Vanzini that will report on the 2026 F1 world championship. On the occasion of the presentation of the motorsport season schedule of the broadcaster Sportal.it exclusively interviewed the former Ferrari driver: “We expect a world championship certainly open, but it is obvious that right now the teams are hiding” he began.

“In testing, the teams are doing anything and everything to be able to mask what the real performance is,” he added.

But again, the top four teams we know, McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, are close, they seem close. This is, like to say, the’indication that it will be a world championship that is definitely open and that will entertain us, on the track but also on the couch at home, because it promises to be balanced and hard-fought”.

“Then the unknowns are many, also from a point of view of the drivers’learning, of adapting to different ways of driving, of reasoning that they will have to do abruptly, instantaneously, even when they will have to manage the electrical part. This will not be easy, however, like all things they will get used to it and then find the right way” continued the Milanese.

Among Ferrari fans, there is great anticipation for what Lewis Hamilton will be able to do after a largely subpar year: “The Briton has the opportunity to be able to take advantage of this new rule change to be reborn. In fact, he has never appreciated or interpreted in the right way the machines with the ’ground effect. In four years he won two races. So it shows that he never really digested the past regulation. The new one is an opportunity, it won&#8217t be easy for him, because he has so much memory of past things that may perhaps divert him in his intuition, in his instincts, which is then what makes you go fast. But he still has desire, so much desire to take the satisfaction of really winning with Ferrari. What is the problem? It&#8217s that it&#8217s not like it used to be that maybe he will only have two or three opponents. Now there are seven or eight, and so it becomes much more serious”.

Chapter Verstappen: “Max is not nervous, no. I would say he has become wiser. He&#8217s more experienced, his personal life has changed with the arrival of a son, his relationship with Kelly Piquet is strengthening, he&#8217s becoming a man and more aware of his position. When he speaks, he does so freewheelingly without having any hair on his tongue, and that&#8217s kind of what we like from a certain point of view, too. Because he is as naked and raw as we want pilots to be without ‘politicking,’ he says what he wants to say. It’ obvious that he also plays with words from a political point of view because he knows that he needs to be able to have a competitive car to win and like those who can win he wants everything for him: the regulations, the fans, he leaves nothing to anyone else. His is the right attitude of someone who wants to excel”.