Lewis Hamilton With An Excellent Recovery Drive in Sepang

Lewis Hamilton’s recovery drive today was one of his best recoveries of the 2026 Formula One season, but was a classic case of what could’ve been.

Before the race got started, it was delayed by torrential rain in Ferrari made a huge risk to put Hamilton on soft slick tires while most of the field was on intermediate in the track was still extremely wet and Hamilton immediately synced down the order dropping down the P18.

Hamilton then decided to stay out rather than pit immediately because he committed to the gamble that the circuit would dry quickly. At one point in the race, he was over one minute behind the leaders as he would admit later afterwards that he thought that the race was effectively over. However, the track dried, and the gamble started to pay off as Hamilton started to have a lot more pace and suddenly started picking off cars one by one, and Ferrari executed a series of great pit stops, allowing him to keep up and make great progress. Then came a safety car due to Alex Albon coming to a stop and being stranded on the track, which was huge for Hamilton, as it gave him the chance to attack the cars ahead, pass Red Bull's Isack Hadjar, and move into third place, completing the comeback, as that’s where he would stay for the rest of the race.

Despite a furious comeback, Hamilton himself called it “ bittersweet”. Hamilton personally felt that Ferrari had thrown away a genuine shot at victory by getting the opening tire decision wrong because he started second in the race, and instead of fighting Max Verstappen for the win, he spent much of the race trying to recover from the strategic disaster from Ferrari. I overall think Hamilton’s comeback was really impressive considering Ferrari's bad strategic decision and coming back from P18 to P3 is really impressive especially in changing conditions. Hamilton isn’t wrong in my eyes, and I agree with his thoughts of potentially fighting for the win had the decision been changed. Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc recovered from P22 to P4 as well, making Ferrari‘s overall day not as bad as it could’ve been. However, the bottom line is Ferrari nearly ruined Hamilton’s race before it even got going. Despite being in the perfect position to win, one bad decision costed a potential victory for the Scuderia. Hamilton kept the car in contention, and the gamble from Ferrari worked, and he made a proper recovery drive.