{"id":388417,"date":"2026-01-03T06:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388417\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T06:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:16:10","slug":"former-f1-driver-makes-worrying-early-prediction-about-hamiltons-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388417\/","title":{"rendered":"Former F1 driver makes worrying early prediction about Hamilton\u2019s 2026 season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ralf Schumacher<\/a> has cast a worrying prediction for Lewis Hamilton<\/a> ahead of the 2026 season.\u201c…behind the scenes, you hear he doesn’t like simulators.\u201d- Ralf Schumacher\u00a0Despite the sweeping regulation changes set to usher in a new era of Formula 1<\/a>, the 50-year-old believes Hamilton is unlikely to find relief in 2026. Schumacher expects the seven-time world champion to continue struggling, pointing to concerns surrounding his attitude towards simulator work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinter testing would have helped in the past. But behind the scenes, you hear he doesn’t like simulators and he’s still looking for that old driving feel. That tells me it’s not just age, but also a mental issue. He’s no longer willing to open up,\u201d Schumacher said via Sport1.<\/p>\n

The former Williams driver continued by stressing he doesn’t expect the 2026 regulations to suit the British driver, highlighting how he has had less \u2018tinkering\u2019 through his career.<\/p>\n

\"lewis-hamilton-ferrari-qatar-f1-jpg\"\/<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton at the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix – Photo: Race Pictures<\/p>\n

\u201cHamilton was never much of a setup tinkerer. That was already known from his Formula 3 days. Toto Wolff always said at Mercedes: The drivers drive, the team does the setup. You can’t change that overnight. That’s a weakness,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The 2026 F1<\/a> season will feature one of the biggest overhauls the sport has ever witnessed, with changes spanning across the chassis and engines.Hamilton, on his part, endured a challenging 2025 season with Ferrari<\/a>, failing to record any top-three finish and etching his name into several unwanted record books at the Maranello outfit.<\/a>Schumacher dissects his biggest disappointment with HamiltonEarlier, Schumacher pointed at the resigned demeanour of Hamilton during the struggles of the 2025 season<\/a> as what disappoints him the most about the driver.<\/p>\n

The former F1 driver stressed he expected Hamilton to show resilience despite the challenges he was faced with.<\/p>\n

Catch up with GPBlog\u2019s latest Paddock Update<\/p>\n

As the commencement of the 2026 season draws nearer, our Paddock Update is the place to be.<\/p>\n

Follow and subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay up to date with all the happenings as they unfold, ahead of the first on-track action under the new Formula 1 regulations.<\/p>\n

Check out the latest episode of our Paddock Update here \ud83d\udc47<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ralf Schumacher has cast a worrying prediction for Lewis Hamilton ahead of the 2026 season.\u201c…behind the scenes, you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,13275,817,35119,826,813,816,18894,823,30966,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-388417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-charles-leclerc","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-f1-news","13":"tag-ferrari","14":"tag-formula-1","15":"tag-formula1","16":"tag-frederic-vasseur","17":"tag-lewis-hamilton","18":"tag-ralf-schumacher","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}