Hamilton’s No-Simulator Gamble Pays Off as He Beats Leclerc Twice in Montreal

After months chasing his teammate, Lewis Hamilton walked into Montreal without a single simulator session — and walked out faster than Charles Leclerc in every qualifying segment of the weekend.

By Audryk Chesse · 24 May 2026

For the first time in months, Lewis Hamilton walked out of a Ferrari garage looking like the seven-time world champion fans remember. The Briton outqualified Charles Leclerc in both the Sprint Qualifying and the Grand Prix qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix — and he did it after deliberately skipping every single hour of simulator preparation in the build-up to Montreal.

It is the clearest signal yet that his radical decision to step away from Maranello’s simulator, announced after a frustrating Miami weekend, is starting to pay off.

A clean sweep across all six segments

The numbers tell the story bluntly. Hamilton beat Leclerc by 0.084 seconds in Sprint Qualifying and by another 0.108 seconds in the main qualifying on Saturday, and he was faster than his teammate in all six qualifying segments across the weekend. He lined up fifth on the grid for Sunday’s race; Leclerc could only manage eighth.

Coming into Montreal, the head-to-head between the two Ferrari drivers had been brutal: 27-9 in Leclerc’s favour since Hamilton joined the team. Four of those nine Hamilton wins came in China — the only other 2026 round where he had also avoided the simulator. The pattern is becoming hard to ignore.

Why Hamilton walked away from the sim

Hamilton had laid the groundwork for the experiment weeks earlier. After Miami, he told reporters his preparation routine simply was not helping him. The simulator, he said, kept pointing him toward set-up directions that did not survive contact with real tarmac.

“I’m going to have a different approach in the next race. Because the way we’re preparing at the moment is, it’s not helping. Ultimately it’s always a matter of correlation. We go on it, and then get to the track and the car feels different.”

His logic was straightforward: in a sprint weekend, with only one practice hour, an inaccurate simulator baseline costs him the entire weekend. By the time he can react to a bad set-up, qualifying is already underway. The Chinese Grand Prix, where he secured third place and called it his “best weekend” of the year, had been the only outlier — and notably, the only race he had prepared for without the simulator.

So he repeated the experiment in Canada. “I’m not going to go on the simulator between now and the next race,” he said before flying to Montreal. “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.”

“The best I’ve felt all year”

The mood after Sprint Qualifying was different from anything Ferrari had heard from him in months. Hamilton finished fifth in the Sprint shootout, only narrowly missing a higher slot after a small mistake on his final run, but his tone was unmistakably lighter.

“That’s probably the best qualifying session we’ve had for some time. The fact that I didn’t do the sim, and it was the best I’ve felt all year — I think that’s the way forward for me.”

He credited the time he saved by not running the simulator with allowing him to focus on training and to comb through ride stability and mechanical balance with his engineers. The result was a base set-up he had never tried before — one he says has “transformed the car” for him.

A breakthrough on confidence, not raw pace

Saturday’s main qualifying brought another fifth place, this time 1:12.868, less than three-tenths off George Russell’s pole. Hamilton believes a clean final lap could have put him as high as third.

“It felt great. We made some good changes in qualifying,” he said afterwards. “I was hopeful for a better result, but I didn’t get my last lap. I think honestly if I got that last lap I probably could have been third.”

Pressed on what was different, he pointed to the fundamentals: “It’s brakes, corner entry stability, and just with the set-up that I’ve migrated to, I’m much, much happier with being able to attack the corners.” That’s the language of a driver who has finally found his window in a car that has frustrated him for the better part of two seasons.

A contrasting weekend for Leclerc

While one half of the Ferrari garage celebrated, the other had a weekend to forget. Leclerc qualified eighth and described the session as one of the toughest of his career, blaming a brake feeling he could not get under him and tyres he simply could not warm up. He spoke of being “on ice” through Q1 and Q2 and called Q3 an “acceptable lap” with a “not really acceptable” position.

The gap to pole — 0.398 seconds — was a fair reflection of where Ferrari sits relative to Mercedes and McLaren this weekend. The gap to his teammate, however, was a more uncomfortable conversation.

What it means for Ferrari

Ferrari are still missing straight-line speed in Montreal and brought no upgrades to the SF-26, while Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull all rolled out new parts. So this is not the weekend the team becomes the benchmark. But it is the first weekend in 2026 where Hamilton has looked as natural in the car as Leclerc usually does — and arguably more so.

For a team that has spent the year producing pace in flashes rather than consistently from both sides of the garage, having a settled Hamilton changes the equation. If Sunday’s race confirms what qualifying suggested, Ferrari finally have a route to turning one-car weekends into a genuine double threat — and Hamilton has a preparation method he can defend with results, not just instinct.

The simulator may be the best Hamilton has ever used. For now, he just doesn’t want to use it.