Hamilton to Skip Ferrari Simulator Ahead of Canada After Miami Setup Mismatch

• Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari’s simulator gave him a setup direction for Miami that did not translate to the real car on track.
• The seven-time world champion will prepare for the Canadian Grand Prix through factory meetings with engineers instead of virtual running.
• Hamilton finished seventh in the Miami sprint and sixth in the grand prix after first-lap contact with Franco Colapinto.

Hamilton Ditches Sim Work After Correlation Breakdown in Miami

Lewis Hamilton will not use Ferrari’s simulator in the build-up to the Canadian Grand Prix after concluding that the virtual preparation for Miami pointed him toward a car setup that did not work in reality.

Hamilton had a frustrating weekend in Miami, finishing seventh in the sprint race and sixth in the grand prix. A collision with Alpine’s Franco Colapinto on the opening lap of the main race left his car with damage that limited his performance from there.

Simulators are now a routine part of race preparation across the Formula 1 grid. Drivers spend hours assessing setup options in the virtual environment so they can arrive at the circuit with a clear direction. The value of that work, though, depends entirely on how closely the simulator mirrors what happens on track.

“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.

When asked whether the gap between simulator data and real-world performance was at the root of the problem, he was direct.

“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,” he added.

Hamilton, who entered Formula 1 when simulator technology was still in its earliest stages, believes his time between races would be better spent at Ferrari’s Maranello factory talking through engineering data than logging laps in the virtual car.

“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.

“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. Because when we went to China I had the best weekend without sim.”

Hamilton currently sits fifth in the drivers’ championship. He has won the Canadian Grand Prix seven times in Montreal and is keen to add an eighth, but he is not confident the current Ferrari will suit the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where long straights put a premium on straight-line speed.

“I’m looking forward to it, but we need to see if we can cut some drag before the next race,” he said. “Because on the straight line we’ve got that deficit and so we’ve got to have a look into that.”

Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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