Lewis Hamilton frustrated as Ferrari struggle despite Miami upgrades

Lewis Hamilton admitted frustration as he thought his SF-26 would be stronger with its 11 updates in the Miami Sprint qualifying.

The seven-time world champion qualified seventh fastest on Friday, over a tenth down on his team-mate Charles Leclerc, who was P4, and seven tenths slower than pole-sitter Lando Norris.

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc reveal Ferrari Miami qualifying struggles

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Trailing Mercedes in the opening rounds of the championship, Ferrari arrived at the Miami Autodrome with a host of new parts for the SF-26 – 11 in total.

Amongst the changes, the team introduced a new floor and diffuser, while also revising the ‘Macarena’ rear wing to improve drag reduction and focus on increasing load in cornering mode.

But while the team topped the weekend’s sole practice session with Charles Leclerc almost three tenths faster than Max Verstappen, and Hamilton P4, the Ferraris fell down the order in Sprint qualifying.

Leclerc qualified in fourth place with Hamilton seventh.

“We didn’t really know what to expect,” Hamilton said after SQ. “I had hoped that we would be better, but the car didn’t feel particularly great.”

Asked whether the updated SF-26 could perform better at other tracks, he replied: “I have no idea.

“I thought we would be stronger than we were today.

“We’ve got to do some work overnight to try and figure out why we’re not that quick.

“I was hopeful coming in, positive that we could be much higher, but not meant to be.”

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His team-mate Leclerc weighed in on Ferrari’s upgrades after bagging his fourth P4 on the starting grid this season.

The Monegasque driver was 0.370s behind Norris, and declared McLaren, who also upgraded its car, had optimised its performance for the first time in F1 2026.

“The upgrades are fine, it’s just that everybody brought upgrades,” he said. “We kind of expected that situation where Mercedes is probably still the car to beat.

“McLaren did a very big step forward, but I felt like they didn’t optimise their first races of the season, so they were always there but they didn’t put everything together.

“On our side, we have today particularly we’ve struggled with tyres. Medium were working very well, on the soft it wasn’t a nice feeling, so on that we’ve got to look at it.

“We know that in the race pace we are stronger, but in terms of qualifying there is still some work to be done.”

The eight-time grand prix winner believes Ferrari will be stronger in the races, Saturday’s Sprint and the grand prix.

“I think in qualifying tomorrow we can try and fine-tune a little bit and find a bit of performance, but I hope that in the race we can come back in the front,” he said. “We’ve got the pace to do that, let’s just see if we are able to overtake.”

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