Lewis Hamilton Blames Ferrari Software for Miami Sprint Straight-Line Speed Loss

It was not a collapse in form. It was the same energy deployment problem repeating itself under race conditions, and Hamilton’s comments following the race made clear he expects the team to act on it before qualifying for Sunday’s grand prix.

“I think they’re gonna have to do some software changes or something to make sure that doesn’t happen going into qualifying.” He added: “Hopefully we have slightly better deployment and yeah the set up is in the wrong place, definitely will make some big changes going into qualifying.”

Ferrari had reportedly been working on revised battery management and energy deployment algorithms specifically for this weekend, with the aim of addressing the superclipping issues that have plagued the SF-26.

Based on Hamilton’s comments after the Sprint, that fix wasn’t totally working.

With Mercedes now under pressure at this circuit, most of us expected Ferrari to step into the gap. Instead it was McLaren who have pushed forward, leaving Maranello searching for answers about why the SF-26 can’t consistently extract what it appears capable of in practice.

Practice pace that evaporates the moment the pressure is highest is not a car that’s ready to challenge for a championship. Hamilton knows it. The question is whether Ferrari can solve a software problem before Saturday night’s qualifying session because if the straights are still bleeding time, no setup change is going to cover the gap.