Did this Ferrari secret weapon help Lewis Hamilton seal Barcelona F1 win?

Ferrari deployed a secret weapon at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix that benefitted Lewis Hamilton on his way to winning his first Formula 1 race with the Italian team.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton took a spectacular maiden victory as a Ferrari driver thanks to a combination of a perfectly-executed three-stop strategy, devastating pace and masterful tyre management.

Ferrari unleashed an eight-part upgrade package for its SF-26 in Barcelona in a bid to increase downforce and boost aerodynamic performance.

The updates certainly helped as Hamilton missed out on a first pole position in nearly three years by just 0.064s as he secured his first Ferrari front-row start, which he converted into victory on Sunday.

Intriguingly, one upgrade emerged over the weekend that was not listed as part of the official declaration of submitted new car parts released by F1’s governing body the FIA on Friday.

Ferrari introduced new BBS Japan wheel rims to improve the thermal efficiency of its tyres and help control wear. This would have played a contributing factor to aiding tyre management during Sunday’s grand prix, especially given the searingly hot temperatures.

Hamilton completed an aggressive three-stopper in the grand prix but did not appear to suffer from the same level of degradation as his rivals.

While he did conduct three shorter stints compared to the two-stopping Mercedes, Hamilton’s pace, particularly in the second and third stint, was electrifying.

At times in the second stint, Hamilton was lapping two and a half second faster than George Russell. In the final stint, Hamilton boasted five-lap fresher hard tyres than his former Mercedes team-mate but easily pulled almost 20 seconds clear by the chequered flag. Russell later admitted he struggled for pace on the hard tyre.

According to Pirelli, teams have been taking clever approaches to keep their tyres as cool as possible during races this season. 

"It's quite a significant variation,” Pirelli’s F1 chief engineer Simone Berra told media including Crash.net.

"What we have seen this year is that generally stabilised conditions are much lower than in the past, and this is because the rim basically is cooling the whole wheel, and the tyres themselves.

"So this is generating quite a big difference - not only on the rim geometry, but also on the stabilised conditions, team by team.

"Some teams are stabilising quite high with temperature and pressure. Some other teams are stabilising very low. There are completely different approaches, and this can have a big impact.

"The teams that have worked to cool down the tyres a lot with the rims have quite a lot more benefit than some other teams.”

Hamilton urged Ferrari to be 'leaders' in F1 innovation

This is the latest demonstration of Ferrari’s eye-catching innovation this year. Most notably it debuted its rotating ‘Macarena’ rear wing and explored winglets mounted within the exhaust exit on the diffuser.

Hamilton was quick to praise Ferrari’s innovation after pointing the Maranello squad in a direction he wants with its 2026 challenger.

“The team have really listened and really worked hard to add performance and be innovative," Hamilton said.

"This year is all about innovation. We came out with the bit on the rear exhaust. We came out with, what else was it, the rear wing, the Macarena. This is what I was asking for last year.

"It was like, this team has to be the leaders in that, and they've shown that they can and they will."