Lewis Hamilton makes significant change to Canadian Grand Prix preparation in search of Ferrari improvement

Lewis Hamilton is to avoid the Ferrari simulator in the build-up to the Canadian Grand Prix in pursuit of greater clarity with his car on the track. The Briton insists the simulator misled him on his Ferrari setup before racing in Miami last weekend. And with a seventh place in the sprint race backed up by sixth in the grand prix, including a set-back from a collision with Franco Colapinto on the opening lap, Hamilton is making a change in search of answers to ignite his campaign.

But despite common practice for drivers to spend many hours in the simulator before races to assess setup options, Hamilton maintains the virtual setup did not translate to the real life Miami International Autodrome. "I'm going to have a different approach in the next race because the way we're preparing at the moment is not helping, and so we'll see how that goes for the next race," Hamilton said. "Ultimately it's always correlation, but we go on it and then we get to the track and the car feels different when it gets on track.

" Instead of spending considerable time in the simulator, Hamilton hopes to communicate with his engineers at Ferrari's factory in Maranello to gain a better understanding of what he is dealing with before taking to the track. "You know I don't like simulators in general, but I sit at the simulator every week on the build up to this race, working on correlation constantly and you go on it, you prepare for the track, you drive it and you get the car setup to a certain place and then you come to the track and that set up doesn't work," he explained. "And on the sprint weekend, for example, you've only got practice one, you don't really want to veer off from your setup too far, like with a big suspension change and so you stay with it and then you make a change going to qualifying and then you've only got six laps to get on top of it.

Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton during the 2026 Miami Grand Prix (PA) "In an ideal world I should have started where Charles [Leclerc] was at the beginning of the weekend on P1 and I think we would have just had a stronger weekend from there. "So I'm not going to go on the simulator between now and the next race. I'll still go and hold meetings at the factory and stuff, but I'm just going to back away from it for a little bit and see.