Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he has not used Ferrari’s simulator in preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix, despite recognising it as a “powerful tool”.
The seven-time world champion complained in Miami about correlation issues between the simulator and the actual car, something he has raised in the past.
As a result, Hamilton has opted against using Ferrari’s state-of-the-art simulator for Montreal, although he insists it remains an exceptional piece of technology at the team’s disposal.
Despite not using it for this weekend, the 41-year-old is helping the Scuderia improve the simulator, with Hamilton revealing the level of involvement he has had in the process.
Asked if he used the simulator in preparation for Canada, Hamilton replied: “No, I didn’t use a sim. Firstly, the sim is amazing. It’s an amazing space to work in. It’s the best sim I’ve ever seen and best group of people that I’ve known, a large team of people that I get to work with there.
“So, a day at the sim is actually pretty incredible. It is a very powerful tool and something that as a team we continue to evolve.
“I think since I’ve been there, I’ve had a lot of input in some of this evolution and they’ve been really respondent and made loads and loads of changes, and we’ve just been improving it.”
Hamilton’s first taste of a simulator nearly 30 years ago
For Hamilton, the use of simulators has changed dramatically throughout his career, especially since his first simulator session with McLaren in 1997 while he was karting.
Despite the technological advancements made over the years, simulator sessions have never been a particularly enjoyable experience for the 105-time race winner.
Detailing how he has used a simulator across his entire career, Hamilton explained in depth: “With simulation, I feel that the goalpost is always moving. So, I started driving the simulator in 1997, the first simulator, I would say, at McLaren.
“The cockpit didn’t move but we had force feedback in the steering, and I remember it was at Woking, at McLaren’s old factory. And then when it moved to the first real gen, they let me sometimes use it when I was in GP2. And then McLaren, we used it relatively often.
“I didn’t particularly enjoy it, because they were kind of long days and a lot of laps. There’s a point at which you stop learning when you’re doing so many laps, for me personally. And then when I joined Mercedes, they were quite far off with the sim at the time.
“I didn’t use it in all the championships that we won, I barely used the simulator, very rarely. And then in 2020, maybe 2021, I started to use it a little bit more.”
Hamilton prioritises data analysis over simulator sessions
According to the Briton, only once in his entire career has the “exact set-up” used on a simulator performed identically on the actual car.
That came while at McLaren in 2012, with Hamilton pointing to the Singapore Grand Prix — where he secured pole position — as that moment.
“I think there’s only ever been really one time through all the years that I’ve used the sim in these 20 years that the set-up that I had on the sim was the exact set-up I used in qualifying and qualified pole, and that was Singapore 2012, maybe, I think, something like that,” added the veteran.
“So, then all the other times it’s not quite perfect. But as I said, it is a powerful tool. I just think since the last year I used it every week and more often than not I felt you do all the work on the sim, and you get to the track, you find a set-up that you’re comfortable with, you get to the track and everything is opposite.
“So, then you’re undoing the things you’ve learned, some of the ways you’ve approached the corners you have to shift and adjust, set-up that you felt that was good on the simulator is not the same at the track. Sometimes it is, and so it’s kind of hit and miss.”
Given his past success in Montreal, this weekend is an ideal opportunity for Lewis Hamilton to test his theory that he can prepare for an event by focusing on data analysis rather than simulator work.
While he is not entirely ruling out future simulator sessions, he is eager to see how he performs based solely on analysing data with his engineers.
“So, I just decided for this one, I’m just going to sit it out and focus more on the data. So, there was just a lot of deep diving on through-corner balance, mechanical balance, corner approaches, brake balance, optimising the brakes, which have been a problem for me for some time.
“That’s led to really good integration with my engineers. It’s not a tool that… I’m not saying I’m never going to use again. I think it’s something that, for sure, we’ll continue to utilise, particularly on power deployment.
“But yeah, so most often what I’ve done for the last six months, you’d go in after the weekend and you’d work on correlation, and so that when we run it again, but then you go to the next track and it’s slightly off sometimes. So, we’ll see how the weekend goes. But China, for example, I didn’t do the sim for China and it was my best weekend.”
