{"id":792489,"date":"2026-07-11T01:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T01:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/792489\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T01:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T01:04:17","slug":"lewis-hamilton-reveals-vindication-from-bold-ferrari-f1-decision-via-charles-leclerc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/792489\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton reveals vindication from bold Ferrari F1 decision via Charles Leclerc"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bold decision from Lewis Hamilton to ditch Ferrari\u2019s simulator has appeared to rub off on teammate Charles Leclerc, who went on to take British Grand Prix<\/a> victory.<\/p>\n

After struggling to keep momentum after his debut Ferrari podium in China, Hamilton adopted a different approach to race preparation by ditching Ferrari\u2019s simulator. The British driver revealed in Miami after back-to-back P6 finishes that the experience of the simulator compared to the real life car were not aligning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spend time on the simulator, you know I don\u2019t like simulators in general, but I was at the simulator every week on the build-up to this race, and working on correlation constantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go on it, you prepare for the track, you drive it, and you get the car set up to a certain place. And then you come to the track, and that set-up doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, he stopped relying on the simulator. And went on to have a run of three podiums, including his first win for Ferrari in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the British Grand Prix, Hamilton\u2019s engineers relied on the seven-time world champion\u2019s extensive knowledge of the Silverstone track for the set-up of the SF-26. On the other side of the garage, Leclerc initially used the simulator to work out his set-up. But ultimately followed his teammate\u2019s direction, and ended up taking the victory.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/p>\n

\"After<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton bounced back with a maiden Ferrari victory in Barcelona, and Charles Leclerc followed it up in Britain \u2013 his first win for 640 days<\/p>\n

Hamilton\u2019s direction is the right one<\/p>\n

Hamilton finished third after a pit stop under the late safety car dropped him down a place from second. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, up until now, we really have been making such great progress,\u201d he said at Silverstone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what gives me confidence is coming into this weekend, the simulator said that we should start in a much different place with the set-up, and my engineers and I decided to stay within the direction that we would normally go.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharles started the way it was, that the sim would say to go, and then ended up my philosophy.\u00a0The direction that I was taking was ultimately the right one, and he migrated that way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to see that direction that I have pushed for is paying off and that we\u2019ve just got to continue to make changes and continue to push. We\u2019ve got to continue to bring upgrades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silverstone marked the Scuderia\u2019s first double podium in the 2026 season. And in fact, their first double podium since Lewis Hamilton joined the squad in 2025. Although the Brit stayed third in the Driver\u2019s Standings,<\/a> the gap to leader Kimi Antonelli is now just 32 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to see the pace that we\u2019ve had this weekend at this sort of circuit. We definitely didn\u2019t anticipate it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo just phenomenal to be strong weekend as a team and come away with really good points is really, really special. And a big, huge thanks to the team,\u201d Hamilton said at Silverstone.<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 <\/a>Watch: Ferrari takes SF-26 for a spin around the Madring<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bold decision from Lewis Hamilton to ditch Ferrari\u2019s simulator has appeared to rub off on teammate Charles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,13275,817,826,823,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-792489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792489","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=792489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}