Lewis Hamilton’s recent complaints about the Ferrari simulator suggest a complete overhaul may be necessary at Ferrari’s F1 factory.
Hamilton had a frustrating Miami Grand Prix weekend, failing to finish in the top five in any of the four competitive sessions. After the race, he indicated that the simulator at Maranello was taking him in the wrong setup direction.
He said, via ESPN: “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.”
As he prepares for the Canadian Grand Prix later this month, Hamilton says he won’t use the sim at all. He scored a podium in China earlier this year without driving the track virtually in the 2026 Ferrari, likely due to the tight turnaround after Australia.
Ferrari pumped ‘tens of millions’ into simulator but has it worked?
As explained by Gazzetta dello Sport, Ferrari could be in ‘serious trouble’ based on Hamilton’s comments. If they do have a correlation issue, ‘everything will have to be reprogrammed’, starting with the wind tunnel.
Ferrari need to make sure that, across the board, their ‘algorithms and mathematical models’ accurately reflect ‘real-world operating conditions’, even if they’re never going to achieve perfection.
The report labels this Ferrari’s ‘greatest weakness’ across the near-20-year period since their last F1 title.
In-season development is more important than ever this season, given that it’s year one of a brand-new rules cycle. That means the learning curve up and down the pit lane will be extremely steep.
Ferrari brought 11 upgrades to the Miami GP, tantamount to changing half the car, but found less than a tenth of a second in terms of lap time. While it’s too early to label the package a failure, the initial results were clearly disappointing.
It was only in 2021 that Ferrari invested ‘several tens of millions’ in building a new simulator while Mattia Binotto was team principal.
But based on Hamilton’s complaints, it hasn’t yielded the ‘breakthrough’ that the team have been hoping for. It’s worth noting that Charles Leclerc hasn’t raised the same issues, but he will inevitably be asked about it in Canada.
