It seems Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari have cause for concern after the massive upgrades package the team brought to Miami failed to work its magic.
Hamilton has enjoyed a more positive start to the 2026 campaign after a disappointing maiden season in red that saw him fail to make it onto a single grand prix podium.
For fans of the 41-year-old questioning whether he made the right decision leaving Mercedes after 12 successful seasons, Hamilton thankfully put an end to his podium drought at the Chinese Grand Prix back in March, joining his replacement Kimi Antonelli and old team-mate George Russell in the top three.
Though Mercedes made it clear from the off in the new regulations era that they were the ones to beat, Ferrari, Hamilton and his new team-mate Charles Leclerc have all enjoyed some impressive grand prix starts thanks to the Scuderia’s lightning fast starting procedure.
But after a five-week enforced break from the 2026 campaign, rivals McLaren and Red Bull appeared to have come on leaps and bounds, whereas Ferrari, Hamilton and their 11 upgrades failed to do anything spectacular in Miami.
Ferrari F1 rivals ‘not worried’ after underwhelming Miami upgrades
In the Miami sprint, Hamilton finished way down in P7 whilst team-mate Leclerc joined McLaren driver duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the top three.
Come the main event on Sunday and things got worse for the seven-time champion, who, to be fair, felt his race was over from the very beginning after picking up damage from a lap one collision with Franco Colapinto at Turn 11.
But the point still stands that yet again, Hamilton seemed unable to bring the fight to Leclerc, even with the whole host of upgrades both drivers were expected to make use of in Miami.
Addressing Ferrari’s disappointing weekend and their underwhelming upgrades, Karun Chandhok said on the Sky F1 Show: “I think it was overall a bit disappointing for them. As someone from McLaren and someone else from Mercedes both pointed out to me, if that is the big Ferrari upgrade for this early part of the season, then we’re not worried because if that’s the best they’ve got and they haven’t got something coming for a little while, we’ll be okay.
“This should have been the weekend which propelled them in front… we know Mercedes are out of sync, they’re bringing their upgrade to Canada. Ferrari were ahead of Red Bull and were ahead of McLaren and I feel like they’ve slipped behind.”
The ex-F1 driver and pundit then turned his attention to Hamilton’s lacklustre results last time out, implying there are concerns within the Maranello-based F1 team.
“For me, I think there’s a little bit of concern or there should be a little bit of concern at Maranello and Ferrari. Lewis just looked behind didn’t he? He was just behind Charles by a couple of tenths, two, three tenths all weekend. Obviously in the race he was compromised with the damage [from the early incident with Colapinto] but I think they’ve got to think about whether there’s further performance to be optimised or unlocked from this update because otherwise they’re going to get dropped behind when McLaren add more go faster bits that we believe are coming to Canada and Mercedes get their big upgrade.”
Are Ferrari in trouble?
Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft then weighed in on the situation at the Scuderia, adding: “To come home with a sixth and an eighth from an upgrade weekend, that’s massive disappointment.
“Albeit some some of it can be explained by Lewis’ tyres overheating in the sprint and then the damage he got in the grand prix but yeah, I hope on the drawing board somewhere at Maranello they’ve got another upgrade package that works a little bit better. Otherwise, they’re in trouble.”
