Lewis Hamilton revealed that he is “challenging” his Ferrari engineers as he continues to feel frustrated by a lack of performance as the Formula 1 season progresses.
The seven-time World Champion endured more misery in Canada with a damaged car after a race that followed a promising qualifying outing.
Starting fifth, having thought he would not even make it through to Q3, Hamilton eventually finished sixth behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton has struggled continuously with the SF-25, as well as the ongoing integration with his new engineers, adjusting to life in Maranello after 11 years with Mercedes.
The Briton has divulged that he is often vocal with the team as he tries to gain a mutual understanding, but again conveyed his wish for the car to be given more upgrades.
“Just incremental steps [of progress],” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“We’ve not had any upgrades or anything like that so it’s the same car for quite some time now.
“So with the same package each weekend I’m just challenging the guys, I’m constantly battling the engineers asking questions, because they set things up and ‘this is how we always do it’ and I’m like ‘well what about this’ and we work on trying things and bit by bit we are making progress.
“We’ve been improving our qualifying from Monaco onwards, which is positive, but ultimately, we need upgrades, man. We need an upgrade to be able to fight the guys up front.”
A winning car in 2026 ‘the priority’ for Hamilton
Hamilton admitted that he “[doesn’t] know what’s coming” in terms of upgrades, but Team Principal Fred Vasseur has since revealed that some will be coming over the next two Grands Prix.
Aware that a strong finish to the season would be a bonus, Hamilton concluded that he is hoping that the team’s focus will not shift away from working on the 2026 car, which he hopes will bring him the elusive eighth World Championship.
“It’s my first half of the year in a new team. It’s interesting to see how different teams work and operate,” he added.
“There’s been times in my career where you’ve had a whole bunch of upgrades very, very early on in the season and you plough ahead very early and then you stop and taper off and sometimes it’s been slower and you know here it’s also in the last year of this generation of cars, it’s harder to find performance and also you could at least focus on the next year.
“Hopefully we can still fight for a second in the Constructors that would be great, but I want a car that can win next year so that’s [the] priority.”
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