27/07/2025 10:10
It has taken Lewis Hamilton just seven months to understand the new
world of Ferrari from the inside after a big culture shift for the
seven-time champion. Hamilton is into his 19th F1 season, but has
spent his entire career with teams based in England and with a
deep-rooted British mentality after six years with McLaren and 12
with Mercedes. As such, after evaluating his new team, Hamilton has
drawn up several documents, which number at least three, which he
has handed over to the team. They include an analysis of the
current technical and organisational structures within Ferrari, the
problems of the 2025 SF-25 car, his wishes for the 2026 machine,
as well as changes which are required to drive the team forward.
Hamilton has echoed the thoughts of team-mate Charles Leclerc,
well-established within Scuderia norms in his seventh season with
the team, such as indicating a problem in high-speed corners. The
Scuderia's design and and simulation tools are state-of-the-art and
allow for rapid tools to detect any problems with upgrades to be
brought to the car. Through his analysis, Hamilton has detected a
problem with Ferrari's working processes. Having analysed each
working group at the factory, and not just in the technical
department, he has found bottlenecks that do not allow the full
potential to be expressed, and has recommended a different modus
operandi across different departments. This would start with the
communication between the departments and being more proactive in
terms of development routes. Currently, in development, Ferrari
follows several ideas and then selects the optimal one only in the
pre-execution phase. The idea is to pursue different strands of
development before ultimately choosing the one showing the most
potential. But these long and predictive analyses mean the team
cannot keep up with the fast-paced evolution of other teams, and
would be a change in medium-to-long-term strategy, ignoring minor
events and focusing overall on a multi-year fixed point plan. The
article continues below. Lewis Hamilton Ferrari documents Hamilton
also wants to improve the execution of Ferrari's race weekends,
especially when it comes to quick and effective set-up choices, but
also in the habit of the organisational planning of track days. In
his analysis of the SF-25, Hamilton is understood to have
highlighted the unpredictability of the vehicle dynamics, and
reactions to whatever the set-up maybe, which he feels has severely
limited his understanding of the car and driving style. For 2026,
the main point Hamilton would like to be addressed would appear to
be the precise balance between front and rear, with the car not
using extreme set-ups. In other words, he wants a base set-up which
allows changes to be made that translate into tangible effects o
the behaviour, but without wrecking the set-up. The same applies
to the effects of upgrades over the course of the season. In
essence, Hamilton wants a car that is not quirky and with
progressive improvement.
