Why Lewis Hamilton is ditching Ferrari F1 simulator after worrying claim

Lewis Hamilton plans to ditch Ferrari’s Formula 1 simulator and has vowed to try a “different approach” following the Miami Grand Prix.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton was critical of Ferrari’s simulator following a tough grand prix qualifying in Miami, saying it was sending him “in the wrong direction” after only managing sixth place.

Hamilton was on the back foot compared to team-mate Charles Leclerc in Miami and after finishing sixth in the race (seventh on the road before Leclerc's post-race penalty), he revealed he plans to no longer use Ferrari’s simulator after believing it misled him on a “weekend to forget”.

"I'm going to have a different approach in the next race,” Hamilton said in response to a question from Crash.net. “Because the way we're preparing at the moment is, it's not helping. And so we'll see how that goes for the next race.

"Ultimately it's always [a matter of] correlation. We go on it, and then get to the track and the car feels different when you get to a track.

“I don’t like simulators in general, but I'm at the simulator every week in the build-up to this race and working on correlation constantly.

"You 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't work.

"And in the sprint weekend for example, you've only got practice one, you don't really want to veer off from your set-up too far, like with a big suspension change, and so you stay with it. And then you make a change going into qualifying and you've only got six laps to get on top of it.

"So in an ideal world I should have started where Charles was at the beginning of the weekend and I think we would have just had a stronger weekend from there on.

"So I'm not going to go on the simulator between now and the next race [in Canada]. I'll still go and hold meetings at the factory and stuff - but I'm just going to back away from it for a little bit and see.

“When we went to China I had the best weekend without the sim.”

Hamilton’s race was ultimately ruined by substantial damage picked up in an opening lap clash with Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.

“Generally, I’m happy with it [the car], we just started on the wrong foot this weekend," he added. 

“The car didn't feel very snappy on the way into corners and then massive understeer in the mid-corner - so that's not the balance that you would want.

“It was better for qualifying than for going into the race, but I wasn’t able to really capitalise on it.”