Hamilton reveals why he ditched Ferrari simulator ahead of Canadian GP
Photo: Race Pictures
10:31, 22 May
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Henry Eccles is a freelance Formula 1 journalist for GPblog, covering breaking news, live race blogs, and features across the F1 calendar. Since joining in 2026, he has produced high-volume reporting on the sport’s biggest stories, alongside feature pieces including analysis and historical content.
Lewis Hamilton has explained why he decided to abandon the Ferrari simulator in the build up to this weekend's Canadian GP. The Briton revealed his plan to avoid the sim following the last race at Miami, where he finished in a disappointing P6.
In Miami, Hamilton's race was compromised early on after contact with Alpine's Franco Colapinto, and while he was eventually bumped up to P6 following teammate Charles Leclerc's 20-second penalty, the seven-time world champion revealed his plan to avoid what he himself called a "powerful tool" for the next race.
Hamilton explained to GPblog and others that he had not used the simulator in preparation for the Chinese GP, where he scored his first-ever P3 podium finish for the Scuderia after a torrid 2025, but the former Mercedes man has offered further detail into why he has taken the same approach prior to this weekend's action in Montreal.
Despite confirming his decision to ditch the simulator, Hamilton was firstly keen to stress the Ferrari setup is state-of-the-art, telling media, including GPblog: "No, I didn’t use a sim. Firstly, the sim is amazing. It’s an amazing space to work in. It’s the best sim I’ve ever seen and best group of people that I’ve known, a large team of people that I get to work with there. So, a day at the sim is actually pretty incredible.
"It is a very powerful tool and something that as a team we continue to evolve. I think since I’ve been there, I’ve had a lot of input in some of this evolution and they’ve been really respondent and made loads and loads of changes, and we’ve just been improving it."
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Hamilton's relationship with 'hit and miss' simulator
Photo: Race Pictures
What followed was a detailed timeline of Hamilton's relationship with the simulator, as the Briton revealed he barely used the tool during his glory years at Mercedes, and that it has been "hit and miss," particularly during his period at Ferrari.
"With simulation, I feel that the goalpost is always moving. So, I started driving the simulator in 1997, the first simulator, I would say, at McLaren. The cockpit didn’t move but we had force feedback in the steering, and I remember it was at Woking, at McLaren’s old factory.
"And then when it moved to the first real gen, they let me sometimes use it when I was in GP2. And then McLaren, we used it relatively often. Didn’t particularly enjoy it, because they were kind of long days and a lot of laps. There’s a point at which you stop learning when you’re doing so many laps, for me personally."
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Hamilton then moved on to his time at Mercedes, who had a simulator that he said was "quite far off" when he arrived. The Briton explained that he rarely used the sim until the latter stages of his Silver Arrows career.
"I didn’t use it in all the championships that we won, barely used the simulator, very rarely. And then in 2020, maybe 2021, I started to use it a little bit more. I think there’s only ever been really one time through all the years that I’ve used the sim in these 20 years that the set-up that I had on the sim was the exact set-up I used in qualifying and qualified pole, and that was Singapore 2012, maybe, I think, something like that. So, then all the other times it’s not quite perfect."
Hamilton focuses on sim-less Montreal preparation
Photo: Race Pictures
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Since moving to Ferrari, Hamilton says he has used the simulator every week, but has found that the work he would do with the tool would rarely correlate with the on-track action. He has instead opted to focus more on data in the build-up to the Canadian GP.
"But as I said, it is a powerful tool. I just think since the last year I used it every week and more often than not I felt you do all the work on the sim, and you get to the track, you find a set-up that you’re comfortable with, you get to the track and everything is opposite. So, then you’re undoing the things you’ve learned, some of the ways you’ve approached the corners you have to shift and adjust, set-up that you felt that was good on the simulator is not the same at the track. Sometimes it is, and so it’s kind of hit and miss.
"So, I just decided for this one, I’m just going to sit it out and focus more on the data. So, there was just a lot of deep diving on through-corner balance, mechanical balance, corner approaches, brake balance, optimising the brakes, which have been a problem for me for some time. That’s led to really good integration with my engineers.
Hamilton concluded by not ruling out further use of the sim in the future, but reiterated his earlier observation that without it, he had his best-ever weekend for Ferrari in Shanghai.
"It’s not a tool that… I’m not saying I’m never going to use again. I think it’s something that, for sure, we’ll continue to utilise, particularly on power deployment. But yeah, so most often what I’ve done for the last six months, you’d go in after the weekend and you’d work on correlation, and so that when we run it again, but then you go to the next track and it’s slightly off sometimes. So, we’ll see how the weekend goes. But China, for example, I didn’t do the sim for China and it was my best weekend."
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Canadian Grand Prix
Overview
Friday 22.05.26
Practice 1
04:30 PM
Sprint Qualification
08:30 PM
Saturday 23.05.26
Sprint Race
04:00 PM
Qualification
08:00 PM
Sunday 24.05.26
Race
08:00 PM
Friday 22.05.26
Practice 1
Fri 04:30 PM
Sprint Qualification
Fri 08:30 PM
Saturday 23.05.26
Sprint Race
Sat 04:00 PM
Qualification
Sat 08:00 PM
Sunday 24.05.26
Race
Sun 08:00 PM
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F1-stand 2026
Season
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | MercedesMER | 100 | |
2 | MercedesMER | 80 | |
3 | FerrariFER | 63 | |
4 | McLarenMCL | 51 | |
5 | FerrariFER | 49 | |
6 | McLarenMCL | 43 | |
7 | Red Bull RacingRBR | 26 | |
8 | HaasHAA | 17 | |
9 | AlpineALP | 16 | |
10 | Racing BullsRCB | 10 |
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