The Rainmaker

Formula 1 Enthusiast ♧ Golf Nut ♧ Sports Fan

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@autosport He did tell us, some folks just didn’t listen.

[Autosport @autosport]

No F1 driver had ever won a Grand Prix after making 300 starts... until Lewis Hamilton came along and did it THREE times 🐐

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@LewisHamilton we never forgot.

I wrote this “Dear Lewis Hamilton” article to you after Vegas last year.

It was then that I personally felt you might be at your lowest, but you dug deep and rose from the ashes ~ “Still I Rise”

https://t.co/ywXAbh5HVu… via @WheelsandStick

#F1 #BarcelonaGP

[Lewis Hamilton @LewisHamilton]

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@HillaryClinton at 78 is the most experienced and undoubtedly the most qualified hand we have that can restore a Democracy to some semblance of respectability in a short time.

Pair her up with @MichelleObama to address the age issue and you got something.

Hey @BarackObama get to work on the convincing part brother.

[Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar]

Hillary Clinton says when she was Secretary of State there was “constant” and “relentless” pressure by Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak to secure U.S. backing for a military strike against Iran.

Clinton recalled hours-long phone calls where Israeli officials used leverage tactics, frequently telling her their "planes are on the tarmac" to imply an imminent, unilateral strike.

Clinton says she would respond to pressure like that with: "Well, good luck."

The New Yorker’s David Remnick asks if she felt the U.S. was being manipulated or "played" by a foreign ally that receives an enormous amount of American aid, Clinton agreed and said it happened "all the time" due to Netanyahu's intense focus on the issue.

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@Howardroak I never left 🤣🤣

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

The biggest takeaway here is the fact that @ScuderiaFerrari is stepping outside of their comfort zone and were decisive vs scripted. They acted boldly and took risk on the say so of the most dominant driver to ever race in @F1

There was no “we are looking into it” no “we will get back to you” - they are starting to trust @LewisHamilton a man who has been to the promise land and can help lead them out of the wilderness.

@Charles_Leclerc will be the biggest beneficiary from this so his fans should calm down.

#F1 #BarcelonaGP

[Scuderia Ferrari HP @ScuderiaFerrari]

P1!!!!!! @LewisHamilton 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

👏👏👏👏

[Hamilton Insights @LH44_insights]

Lewis Hamilton’s first win in red or the Heist at Barcelona

I will be honest. When the grid formed on Sunday morning and I saw Lewis on used softs against Antonelli and Russell on mediums, I was not cautiously optimistic. I was convinced I was about to watch a disaster unfold in slow motion. The thermal degradation at Barcelona is punishing. The soft tyre degrades fast. And the idea that he would jump the Silver Arrows at the start and then somehow hold two faster cars at bay felt like my wishful thinking dressed as strategy. Verstappen being on softs too gave me pause, because Red Bull almost never miscalculate. Almost. It removed a tenth of my concern. I was still ninety percent terrified.
What I had not accounted for was that Lewis was not racing Mercedes. He was running an operation against them.

Twelve years inside that organisation gives you something no strategy software can replicate: you know exactly where the system breaks. Lewis watched Toto Wolff navigate the Hamilton-Rosberg equilibrium, then the Russell dynamic, then every iteration of the internal political contract that governs how Mercedes treats its drivers when a championship is at stake. He did not just race for Mercedes. He studied it. And what he brought to Ferrari's pit wall was a map of the precise point where Mercedes' governance structure becomes a liability.

That point is this: a Mercedes in a title fight cannot coordinate against a third party without triggering an internal crisis. Equal treatment is not a courtesy at Mercedes. It is a structural constraint, baked into how decisions get made, how stops get called, how risk gets allocated between two drivers fighting each other as much as the field. Two Silver Arrows sounds like a threat. In reality, it is two cars whose strategic interests are partially opposed, managed by a team that will optimise for fairness before it optimises for victory.

Lewis knew this. Ferrari built their entire race around it.
When he said on Saturday that facing two Mercedes would be difficult, he was being truthful. He simply was not being completely so. The other truth, the one that actually shaped the race, is that a politically constrained opponent is a structurally weaker opponent, regardless of how fast their car is. You simply need to find the system’s crack in it and apply pressure there.

And the crack opened exactly as designed. Mercedes compromised the ideal timing of their two-stop by responding at the first stops to Hamilton's three-stop. Every call they made was filtered through two questions simultaneously: what is right for the race, and most importantly, what is fair between our drivers. When Antonelli was visibly faster than Russell on the hards and radioing for help, Mercedes held firm. Equal treatment. It cost them around 1.5 seconds. Ferrari only ever had to answer one question.

Then came the number that made it clinical. The theoretical pit stop time loss was 23 seconds. Lewis was going so much faster than both Mercedes that the computer was already projecting he would pass them both before the end. Then Alonso pulled off at Turn 10 on lap 40. The VSC came out, Lewis took his third stop and emerged still in the lead on fresh hards. He never had to test those projections on track. According to the race data, Alonso had just handed Hamilton and Ferrari the certainty of a victory they might have been set for anyway.

This victory did not come from nowhere. It came from a team and a driver assembling something race by race since the start of this season, each weekend adding a layer of fluency between Lewis and a machine that spent most of 2025 refusing to speak his language. Barcelona was not a breakthrough. It was a culmination.

None of this happens without Ferrari doing their part. They showed up in Barcelona with a transformative upgrade, a car that had become F1's fastest through corners, and a strategy wall willing to bet the race on one asymmetric read. Lewis did not win despite his machinery. He won because for the first time in two years, the machinery finally matched the driver inside it. In F1, nobody wins in a shitbox. And Ferrari made sure he did not have to.

And then he picked up the microphone. “To Team LH, I wouldn’t be standing here today without the support that you’ve given me. You really saved my life last year and helped me pick up from a dark place in a difficult moment in my life. So I just wanted to dedicate this win to you. This is our win.”

His 106th. His first in red. Built on insider knowledge, executed with mathematical ruthlessness and delivered on raw pace. But ultimately, a reminder that behind the operation, behind the data and the loophole and the 23 seconds, there is a human being who needed saving too. And came back to win anyway.

I am immensely proud and happy for him. I wish him continuous devastating pace, consistency and wit, and a team that keeps building him the tools to unleash it all. The records will keep following naturally...

... As I have seen somewhere... #W8ForIT 😉

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@Stekam44 @ScuderiaFerrari @F1 🤣🤣🤣😜

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@against_biased @ScuderiaFerrari @F1 Extremely aggressive and totally out of character for them.

This was clearly predetermined with the softs and I am sure the driver with all his past experience from places like Hungary 2019 was instrumental in driving it.

They factored in the Mercedes tire deg for sure.

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@sekoidd @ScuderiaFerrari @F1 Leclerc will show up. If the car is improving, he is too good to not be in the mix. Remember he was quicker for most of the weekend.

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@kaiTalksUtd @ScuderiaFerrari @F1 The Prince has you call him is the future and they are heavily invested in him. He is as quick as Kimi and this can only benefit him. He is a classy kid so he will be fine.

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@kazooap @ScuderiaFerrari @F1 Antonelli and Russell have 2 and 3 race wins less than he does but he has been around longer, he should factor that in his thinking and embrace the winning culture, and the championship process that Hamilton brings to a team.

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@JosephPetrassi @ScuderiaFerrari @F1 They haven’t arrived, but something positive to build on.

.

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@sydneynomad99 @ScuderiaFerrari @F1 They should ask Verstappen if just any car can win races?

Isn’t that what they said 😃- now everyone is finding out that the car has to be good enough to match the driver’s skillset.

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@SidtheSexiest_ @ScuderiaFerrari @F1 Clean air is still king in F1.

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

Let’s not get carried away!!

[sim 🇧🇷🇲🇽🇸🇳🇫🇷🇭🇹 @simscircuit]

'ITALIAN BONO'

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

The right clip for the moment!!

53 years in the making and the Knicks have won it all. 🏀 🏀 🏀

[Wu Tang is for the Children @WUTangKids]

Yo NYC….play the song….your Knicks are finally Champs again!

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

Need I say more 🤷🏽‍♂️

#F1 #BarcelonaGP #LewisHamilton #Ferrari

[Formula 1 @F1]

The moment of victory!

#F1 #BarcelonaGP @LewisHamilton

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

@thanos876 🤣🤣🤣🤣

And they are still acting like he was anything special!!

[🇯🇲7hanos876🇯🇲 @thanos876]

It’s been 13 years since Alonso won a race. 🫣😊😂😂

[The Rainmaker @WheelsandSticks]

Remember when I said in wartime, you need a wartime consigliere? - you are seeing it pay off. Getting Ferrari to change was always going to take that!!

Remember when I said you need someone with the gravitas of a Lewis Hamilton to effect change at Ferrari? - you are seeing it pay off!!

They are starting to believe!!

#F1 #BarcelonaGP #LewisHamilton

[Lewis Hamilton @LewisHamilton]

Ready for the fight, send good vibes