Lewis Hamilton has a theory for how to arrest the first hint of what could become an alarming slide of Formula 1 form in 2026, with the seven-time champion believing the Ferrari simulator has been "sending me in the wrong direction".

The standings still point a healthy picture for Hamilton, who is just eight points down on team-mate Charles Leclerc and has been top-seven in every points-paying session (only the two Mercedes drivers can claim the same).

But after an ultra-encouraging Shanghai weekend - which was also very strong for him relative to Leclerc last year - Hamilton was on the back foot at Suzuka and looked particularly outmatched in Miami.

Leclerc was ahead in every session of the sprint weekend - including all six qualifying segments across Friday and Saturday - before being relegated behind Hamilton in the grand prix finishing order only for his track-cutting with his damaged Ferrari.

Qualifying comparison in 2026

Leclerc 4 - 2 Hamilton

Average gap: Leclerc 0.081s ahead

Median gap: Leclerc 0.156s ahead

Hamilton felt his Miami weekend was wrong-footed from the start, and pointed to the car set-up he and the team had prepared in the simulator as a culprit.

"If I'm honest, I think the simulator really sends me the wrong direction, so I think I might cut that out for now and give it a run without," he said after grand prix qualifying.

Asked the following day to elaborate, he said: "I'm going to have a different approach in the next race. 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."

The exact nature of the issue was that "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".

Hamilton - who pointed out that his best weekend in China came without the chance to do sim prep in the run-up (as it was a back-to-back weekend after Australia) - acknowledged that it's widely known he "doesn'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," he lamented. 

"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 [the simulator] for a little bit and see."

Hamilton was ultimately depriled of the opportunity to fully assess his in-weekend progress - as his Ferrari was immediately damaged on Sunday after a tangle with the Alpine of Franco Colapinto, which cost Hamilton "half a second of downforce on the car".

"It's the worst when it happens on lap one as well because then there's just nothing you can do. And you're a passenger, just waiting.

"Honestly, without the damage, I think we would have been right up in the fight. The car was feeling good on the laps to the grid. 

"So it's a shame because it doesn't really truly reflect the hard work that the team has done."

Lead image courtesy of Craig Evans / Spacesuit Media