MONTMELO, Spain (AP) — It's a fact that's hard to digest for anyone who has followed Formula 1 over the last two decades: Lewis Hamilton hasn’t stood atop the victory podium in nearly two years.
Once a serial winner who dominated the grid, the 41-year-old Hamilton struggled mightily last season, not reaching a podium once in his first campaign with Ferrari, which he'd joined from a Mercedes team that had given him the cars to win six of his seven world titles.
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Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain, front left, walks at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain rides a scooter at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain rides a scooter at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain, rides a scooter at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain walks at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Hamilton hasn’t savored victory since winning the Belgium GP in July 2024.
Since that last win, Hamilton has gone 40 races — 10 with Mercedes, and now 30 with Ferrari — without a victory. Finishing first in the sprint race in China last year was little consolation.
But this season, his second with Ferrari, he has shown signs of a rebirth at the Italian carmaker.
Hamilton got his first podium with Ferrari after finishing third in China in Round 2. He then improved on that with back-to-back second-place finishes in Montreal and Monaco leading into this weekend race.
But there are signs that he and Ferrari are back on track and close to adding to Hamilton's record 105 victories.
Hamilton enters the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix second in the points standings behind teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli, who was only months old when Hamilton made his F1 debut in 2007 and replaced him at Mercedes.
Hamilton said Thursday at the Barcelona track that he has a better “mentality” now after he adapted to Ferrari.
“It’s been a great first part of the season,” he said. “It’s taken us a good year to get to know each other, and I think it’s really is a good foundation for us to then build on.”
He said the team has been able to make the changes to the car that he requested last season, which he said at times made him feel "like banging your head on a wall.” Those included an entirely new braking system that has worked so well that teammate Charles Leclerc has requested the same upgrade to his car.
“I went from a season in a car that I inherited and had no input to, to a car I’ve had input to with elements of the car that I’d asked for,” he said. “The team listened, which has been great.”
The English driver will have the experience of his six career wins in Spain, including five straight from 2017-2021.
Still, the veteran is playing the long game and gives the edge to Antonelli in his faster Mercedes for Sunday's race.
“I think it’s going to be tough to beat Mercedes," he said. “We’re just working on focusing on ourselves and just trying to improve between things. It's just the beginning.”
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Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain, front left, walks at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain rides a scooter at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain rides a scooter at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain, rides a scooter at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain walks at the Barcelona Catalunya racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/ Joan Monfort)
WASHINGTON (AP) — El Nino, Nature's chaotic climate agent, has formed in a warmed-up Pacific Ocean and is expected to grow to historic strength, meteorologists announced Thursday.
Experts said the El Nino, a natural warming cycle, should further heat a globe already warming from fossil fuel pollution and will likely turbocharge extreme weather across the planet. Meteorologists forecast it will rival — or exceed — a record El Nino that began in 1997 and helped trigger billions of dollars in damage from heat waves, floods, droughts, tornadoes and wildfires.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially confirmed the existence of the El Nino, which is a warming of the Pacific near the equator that affects weather patterns across the globe. NOAA's announcement said there's a 63% chance that the El Nino will get so intense this late fall and early winter that it “would rank among the largest El Nino events in the historical record going back to 1950.”
The warm, deep waters of an El Nino affect weather patterns by bringing “a lot of extra heat to the surface, fueling a lot of extreme events for a lot of places around the world,” said Clark University climate scientist Abby Frazier.
She said, especially in the Pacific, “it can get dire very quickly.”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described El Nino as an “urgent climate warning.”
“El Nino conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” Guterres said in a video message.
The weather pattern's effects vary by region. El Nino often dampens — but doesn't eliminate — Atlantic hurricane season activity, but increases it in the Pacific. So while the U.S. East and Gulf coasts may get a break, Hawaii and other islands are more in danger, Frazier said.
The drought-stricken Middle East could benefit, climate scientists said. Other places are looking at more danger. Parts of western South America — where the first El Ninos were noticed decades ago — often get heavy rain and floods, along with an extra warm summer. India faces more intense heat waves, while drought, wildfires and heat threaten Australia.
Northeastern Africa is likely going to get weather whiplash from intense drought to dangerously heavy rains, said Columbia University climate scientist and El Nino expert Muhammad Azhar Ehsan.
In the U.S., El Ninos can cause more intense storms with heavier rainfall in the South, but they also tend to generally benefit the U.S. agriculture industry, said Jon Gottschalck, operational branch chief at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.
Michael Ferrari, meteorologist and head of research at the investment research firm Moby, said conditions for grains and seed, especially soybeans, look favorable in 18 major growing states, but are more mixed when it comes to dairy and cattle.
The northern Rockies and Southwest — where there’s an “off the charts” snow drought — could get some strong summer rains, Gottschalck said. The biggest effect in the U.S. is often in the winter, when the south can get wetter and the Pacific Northwest warmer and drier.
But overall, temperatures raised by the weather pattern can dampen American economic growth, said Stanford climate economist Marshall Burke. Several climate scientists forecast that 2027 will be the hottest year on record because of lagging effects of this El Nino, which is expected to peak in the fall or winter.
“We have pretty clear evidence that the U.S. economy grows more slowly when temps are above normal,” Burke said.
The weather extremes caused by an El Nino also depend on when it develops.
Usually El Ninos form in the summer, peak in the late fall or early winter, and peter out the next spring, scientists said.
However, Ehsan's team forecasts that this El Nino will peak a month or two earlier based on strong early signs from recent weeks. Princeton University climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi said large El Ninos like these also tend to last longer.
The early indications — including warmer water pushing toward the surface of the Pacific — have been so strong and noticeable that forecasters have all been predicting the same ultra strong El Nino, Vecchi said, adding that El Nino forecasts often are all over the place at this time of year.
Scientists predict stronger El Ninos as the world warms from the burning of coal, oil and gas, Frazier and others said. But she said it is too early to say if this El Nino is part of that.
Even before it officially formed, this El Nino has gotten nicknames ranging from “super” to “Godzilla.”
“Instead of scared, we can ask people to be prepared,” Columbia's Ehsan said
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