Lewis Hamilton has tweaked his preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix, having struggled of late in Components 1.
Except for a profitable weekend at Shanghai, Hamilton has underperformed relative to Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc to this point in 2026, together with final day trip in Miami.
The Briton was 0.379s slower in dash qualifying, then 0.176s down in the primary session; he was 24 seconds away from Leclerc within the grand prix earlier than the Monegasque spun, hit the wall and landed a penalty for corner-cutting – all of which occurred on the ultimate lap.
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Because it occurs, the Chinese language Grand Prix was the one one Hamilton didn’t put together for on the simulator; he stated he would revert to this method forward of Canada as he felt the device, as an alternative of being useful, was steering his automotive away from the perfect set-up, due to its correlation (or lack thereof) with monitor efficiency.
Hamilton described the SF-26’s behaviour on the Floridan monitor – particularly early within the weekend – as “not very snappy into corners” and affected by “large understeer in mid-corner”, therefore a shift being required.
“I’ll have a distinct method within the subsequent race, as a result of the way in which we’re making ready in the intervening time is just not serving to,” Hamilton, who’s mendacity fifth within the drivers’ championship, stated following the Miami spherical.
“We go on [the simulator] after which it will get to the monitor and the automotive feels totally different when it will get to the monitor.”
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photograph by: Ryan Pierse / Getty Pictures
Requested to develop on how he wasn’t ‘making ready correctly’, the seven-time world champion defined: “What I imply by it’s that I spend time on the simulator. I do not like simulators generally. I used to be within the simulator each week on the build-up to this race, engaged on correlation consistently. You go on it, you put together for the monitor, you drive it and also you get the automotive set as much as a sure place, and then you definately come to the monitor and that set-up does not work.
“On the dash weekend, for instance, you have solely acquired Follow 1. You do not actually wish to veer off out of your set-up too far, like with a giant suspension change. So that you stick with it and then you definately make a change going into qualifying and you’ve got solely acquired six laps to get on high of it.
“So in an excellent world I ought to have began the place Charles was initially of the weekend, and I believe we’d have simply had a stronger weekend from there.
“So, I am not going to go on the simulator proper now on the subsequent race. I am going to nonetheless go and maintain conferences on the manufacturing unit and stuff. I am simply going to again away from it for somewhat bit and see. After we went to China I had one of the best weekend with out sim.”
Hamilton did make clear that he was pleased with the SF-26 in addition to the set-up drawback, with this 12 months’s smaller, nimbler automobiles suiting his desire higher.
Regardless, Hamilton expects the Canadian GP to be one other difficult race for Ferrari, as a result of successive 600m, 550m, 1.2km and 650m straights, with the Scuderia down on energy relative to Mercedes.
“We’re dropping three to 4 tenths simply on straightline velocity, in order that’s there and it may be there till we repair it,” Hamilton identified. “We have to see if we will minimize some drag earlier than the subsequent race.”
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