MPH: Ferrari's hopes hinge on Hamilton's hands-on overhaul
F1
With time running out, Lewis Hamilton is driving a radical internal push at Ferrari — and the team’s future success may hinge on how it responds, says Mark Hughes
Hamilton is refusing to leave Ferrari without a title
Lewis Hamilton has been particularly busy since the British Grand Prix. Not so much with the filming days at Mugello at which he tried out the Ferrari’s new rear suspension (which is being introduced at Spa this weekend), but in what he’s done around that within the factory.
“I held a lot of meetings,” he explained. “I’ve called on lots of meetings with the heads of the team, so I’ve called on John [Elkan], Benedetto [Vigna] and Fred [Vasseur] in several meetings. I’ve sat with the head of our car development, Loïc [Serra], also the heads of different departments, talking about engines for next year and about front suspension for next year, rear suspension, things that you want, issues that I have with this car.
“So I’ve sent documents, done through the year. After the first few races I did a full document for the team then during this break I did another two documents; some of it is structural adjustments we need to make as a team in order to get better in all the areas we want to improve.
“The other was about the current issues I have with this car. There are some things you do want to take onto next year’s car and some you need to work on changing. I tried the ’26 car for the first time [in the simulator] and started work on that and the engineers come into the room and you sit and debrief with them, every single one of them. So a big, big push.”
Can Hamilton’s hands-on approach help make his Ferrari relationship successful?
Grand Prix Photo
This is at the very heart of Hamilton’s empowerment as a seven (or eight) time world champion. He’s holding everyone to account for what he sees as the team’s structural weaknesses – beyond team principal Vasseur and right up to the ultimate bosses Elkan and Vigna.
“I’m challenging everyone at the team,” he continued. “Particularly the guys at the top. If you look at the team for the last 20 years, they have had some amazing drivers – Fernando, Kimi, Sebastian. Amazing drivers but they didn’t win a title and I refuse to have that happen with me. If you do the same things you have the same results, so I’m challenging everything. They are very responsive.”
Just how responsive will likely determine the whole success or failure of the Ferrari-Hamilton partnership. That and how accurate Hamilton has been in pinpointing the team’s areas of weakness.
Earlier in the season, Hamilton was quite open about how aware he was that his own personal performances were being scrutinised by the senior people in the organisation. This is his response.
He’s spoken several times about how his main difficulty with the car is its braking system. Specifically, the amount of engine braking the system is set up around.
Ferrari fans have been hoping that a new suspension upgrade could put the team in the mix for F1 victory at Spa, but Lewis Hamilton doesn't share their optimism
By
Pablo Elizalde
Charles Leclerc uses the handbrake effect of engine braking to help him rotate the car. To counter the resulting increased tendency to rear locking, Leclerc will sometimes use a small degree of throttle overlap.
Hamilton, whose natural style is to brake super-late and aggressively, finds the engine braking effect excessive, making it difficult to make his technique work effectively. At Mercedes, he used to sometimes even have negative engine braking (ie what Leclerc is doing manually when he overlaps the throttle). The whole baseline set ups built up over years of the two cars are heavily based around this crucial aspect.
This is just one example of the structural limitations he’s referred to. Getting things changed has proved a time-consuming process. He feels that any problems he is having in the cockpit arise from limitations outside of it and he’s endeavouring to take fuller control.
This is a fascinating development, as if the gravity of the situation has galvanised him into action. The size of the task is likely greater than he envisaged, but the body clock is ticking. “I’m here to win. I don’t have much time so it is crunch time.”
