Hamilton frustration grows as Leclerc gap exposes Ferrari upgrade concerns

Lewis Hamilton may be adapting to F1’s new-generation cars — but questions remain over whether he can match Charles Leclerc week in, week out.

Hamilton was outpaced by his teammate throughout the Miami Grand Prix weekend, with the Briton frustrated that Ferrari’s upgrades hadn’t delivered the pace that he had expected.

Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc Miami performance gap

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Hamilton brought his SF-26 home in seventh place in the Sprint, 15s behind third-placed Leclerc, and crossed the line behind his teammate in the grand prix before a penalty dropped Leclerc to eighth. They had been 10s apart at the line.

“I thought we would be stronger than we were,” Hamilton said on Friday evening, before adding on Saturday that McLaren’s upgrades had exceeded expectations but “that’s not how we’ve experienced ours”.

Such was the Briton’s frustration, he declared he won’t do any simulation work between now and Canada as he feels it is leading him astray.

“I’m not going to go on the simulator between now and the next race,” he told PlanetF1.com and other media in Miami. “I’ll still go and hold meetings at the factory and stuff, but just going to back away from it for a little bit and see.”

Former IndyCar star James Hinchcliffe reckons the next few rounds of the championship will determine how Hamilton’s season pans out.

He told the F1 Nation podcast: “I mean, if you even look to last year, through China he was doing not bad, right?

“And it kind of started going south here, to be honest. This wasn’t a great race for him last year, either.

“And I do believe that the way these cars are being lighter and a little more nimble, even with less downforce, that’s still just fundamentally more towards his style than the ground-effects cars were.

“But yeah, is he comfortable enough to be challenging somebody as quick as Leclerc week in and week out on a consistent basis, I don’t think we know yet, but the next couple of races will be interesting.

“Because he had a strong start last year too, even with everything that was new. It’s going to be telling, I think the next few rounds.”

F1 2026 championship: Lewis Hamilton v Charles Leclerc

F1 2026: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between teammates

F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates

Hamilton, though, was notably more downbeat than he had been all season.

Although he has only beaten Leclerc once this year, when he broke his podium duck with a P3 in China, Hamilton has been right on his teammate’s rear wing in the other races.

That wasn’t the case in Miami.

It has F1 correspondent Lawrence Barretto claiming that would’ve been Hamilton’s biggest frustration in Miami.

“I think at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend, he said he kind of felt like he had his mojo back,” he said. “Then obviously that race weekend didn’t quite pan out, and then I feel like it’s carried through into this race.

“The deficit to Leclerc was there essentially throughout the whole weekend, which won’t be easy to take.

“I think he hasn’t clearly felt comfortable with the car at any point this weekend. And we’ve seen a trend with Lewis at Ferrari that when he doesn’t start off the weekend strongly, he finds it quite hard to catch back up.

“He said, actually that they’ve moved to a place where it was close to what Charles had at the beginning, and he wished he’d done that early doors. So I guess that’s a little bit of an admission that they just had a bit of a misstep at the start of the weekend. And on a sprint weekend, it’s really hard, not just Lewis, it’s hard for any driver, really, to catch those kind of missteps up

“I still think it’s way too early to worry about Lewis. I still feel like the Lewis who’s happy with this year’s Ferrari still exists.

“But I think again, it’s race four, where it hasn’t quite gone to plan for him, and I think he would have hoped that he’d have made a bit more progress, been a bit more competitive, relative to Charles.

“We’ve talked about, you know, teammate versus teammate. This is probably what his greatest irritation is, is that he hasn’t been able to compete, to push Charles effectively, consistently throughout the race weekend.”

Hamilton dropped to fifth in the Drivers’ standings in Miami, overhauled by Lando Norris. The Briton has 51 points putting him eight points down on Leclerc, who is P3, and 49 shy of championship leader Kimi Antonelli.

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