Eight months ago Lewis Hamilton was the punchline of his own Ferrari move. After Barcelona, the paddock is asking whether he can win the championship with it — and the most striking endorsement came from the man who used to sign his cheques.
Toto Wolff did not reach for caution after watching Hamilton beat George Russell by almost 20 seconds. The Mercedes principal admitted he has no appetite for a title scrap with his former driver.
"I'd rather not fight with him for a title. I'm not fine with him for a title because I know what he's capable of," Wolff said. "If he smells blood, he goes. I've seen it many years where suddenly the train, the Lewis Hamilton train, started to go and then it's very difficult to stop it."
Pushed on whether a record eighth title is on, Wolff was emphatic. "Yes, absolutely. We are so early in the season. The gap is 41 points. You see a DNF, it robs you of 25 points, and it's wide open," he said. "That's why we can't afford not to finish. We need to just keep putting performance on the car and on the power unit, keep not making mistakes, be clever with the strategy, and stay absolutely on it."
The maths flatter Hamilton because championship leader Kimi Antonelli broke down from second in Spain. The teenager still leads, but he knows where the heat is coming from. "One very strong point of theirs is reliability," Antonelli said of Ferrari. "If they keep putting in strong performances like this, they're going to be a threat."
What unsettles the grid is the Ferrari package, not just its driver. Lando Norris, part of the first all-British podium since 1968, spelled out the danger. "We're lucky Ferrari doesn't have a better engine," Norris told Sky Sports F1. "They're the class of the field in terms of cornering performance. If they make improvements on the engine side, they'll embarrass everyone."
And the rulebook may help them do exactly that. With Red Bull's combustion engine rated the benchmark by the FIA after five rounds, Ferrari are allowed two engine upgrade tokens this year to Mercedes' one.
There is a counter-argument. McLaren's Andrea Stella sees a contest closer than the Barcelona result suggested. "Ferrari is fastest in the corners," Stella said. "Probably Mercedes, over a single lap, is the best car overall when the chassis and the power unit are considered."
Barcelona itself came down to tyre wear, with a three-stop Ferrari strategy letting Hamilton escape late on fresher tyres. Repeat that, keep the upgrades coming, and the surge is real. Fail to, and it was a perfect afternoon that won't return often.
Wolff also has to manage his own pair. Antonelli and Russell held each other up while chasing the same patch of road. "There is a third party now involved in the championship fight," Wolff said. "We will discuss internally with them, the two drivers, how we want to handle the situation where we risk holding each other up."
The verdict arrives fast. Austria's Red Bull Ring hosts the next round on 29 June, with Silverstone following on 6 July.
