Lewis Hamilton’s Unusual Preparation for F1’s Canadian GP

Lewis Hamilton is doing something he has rarely done in a career built on obsessive preparation: he is choosing to do less of it. After a frustrating sixth-place finish at the Miami Grand Prix, the seven-time world champion has confirmed he will not touch the Ferrari simulator before the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal — a radical move for a driver of his calibre, and one rooted in growing concern that the tool is hurting more than it is helping.

A Miami Weekend to Forget

Miami was not the breakthrough Ferrari had been hoping for. The Scuderia rolled into Florida with eleven updates on the SF-26, hoping to challenge a dominant Mercedes. Instead, McLaren leapt ahead of them, and Hamilton spent the weekend chasing a balance that simply would not come.

The Briton was 0.379s slower than team-mate Charles Leclerc in sprint qualifying, and 0.176s down in the main session. In the race itself, he was 24 seconds adrift of Leclerc before the Monegasque spun on the final lap and picked up a 20-second penalty for corner-cutting — a piece of late drama that gifted Hamilton sixth from a provisional seventh. A first-lap collision with Alpine’s Franco Colapinto had already done meaningful damage to his Ferrari, sealing what was always going to be an uphill afternoon.

The Simulator Problem

What made Miami especially exasperating was that Hamilton had prepared exhaustively for it. He had been in the simulator at Maranello every week leading into the race, working on correlation between the virtual model and the real-world car. The reward for all that effort was a baseline set-up that, the moment the SF-26 hit Florida tarmac, did not work.

“I’m going to have a different approach in the next race, because the way we’re preparing at the moment is not helping.”

For Hamilton, the issue is fundamental: the simulator is steering him toward set-ups the car does not actually want.

“I spend time on the simulator. I don’t like simulators in general. I was at the simulator every week on the build-up to this race, working on correlation constantly.”

“You go on it, you prepare for the track, you drive it and you get the car set up to a certain place, and then you come to the track and that set-up doesn’t work.”

On a sprint weekend, with only a single one-hour practice session, that mismatch is brutal. There is no time to make a big suspension change and rediscover the car. Drivers either commit to their pre-event direction or gamble with six laps in qualifying to recover.

“So in an ideal world I should have started where Charles was at the beginning of the weekend, and I think we would have just had a stronger weekend from there.”

Why China Changed His Mind

The reason Hamilton feels confident enough to ditch the simulator entirely is data of his own. The Chinese Grand Prix was the only weekend in 2026 he did not prepare on the sim — and it produced his strongest performance of the season, a third-place finish that ended his long wait for a Ferrari podium.

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

That experience has now become his template. Hamilton will still travel to the factory, still hold meetings with engineers, still pore over data. He just won’t strap himself into the simulator rig.

“I’m not going to go on the simulator right now on the next race. I’ll still go and hold meetings at the factory and stuff. I’m just going to back away from it for a little bit and see.”

The Car Isn’t the Problem — The Set-Up Is

Importantly, Hamilton was at pains to separate his frustration with the preparation process from his view of the SF-26 itself. The smaller, more agile 2026-spec cars suit him, and he has spoken throughout the season of feeling “back to my best” after a difficult debut campaign in red.

In Miami, the symptoms were specific rather than structural: a car that was, in his words, “not very snappy on the way into corners” and suffering from “massive understeer in mid-corner”. A balance problem traceable to the wrong starting set-up — exactly the kind of thing he believes the simulator pointed him toward.

What It Means for Montreal

The Canadian Grand Prix on 22-24 May 2026 is a high-stakes test of Hamilton’s theory. Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with its long straights, heavy braking zones and unforgiving walls, is not a forgiving venue for getting set-up wrong. Going in without simulator preparation is either a stroke of liberation or a recipe for a bruising weekend.

Hamilton currently sits fifth in the drivers’ championship, in the conversation but well behind the leading pace. A strong showing in Canada would not only vindicate his decision — it would also send a quiet but pointed message to Maranello about the limits of their virtual tools.

If he is right, it could reshape how he attacks the rest of the season. If he is wrong, the simulator he is so reluctant to use will be waiting for him when he gets home.