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Lewis Hamilton’s onboard footage shows Ferrari are clearly experiencing ‘teething problems’ with their 2026 F1 battery, Anthony Davidson says.
Hamilton qualified seventh for the Australian Grand Prix, a disappointing result given the excitement around Ferrari in pre-season. Teammate Charles Leclerc was fourth, a tenth and a half ahead.
More alarming was the gap to pace-setters Mercedes, with both drivers more than eight-tenths adrift of George Russell’s pole time. Hamilton has questions for the FIA about the extent of their engine advantage.
How long will Ferrari need to catch Mercedes?
Anthony Davidson says Ferrari energy deployment is ‘absolutely not right’
Reviewing Hamilton’s onboard footage after qualifying, Sky Sports pundit Davidson noticed a ‘massive’ surge of energy from the Ferrari power unit on the exit of turn four.
This was doubly problematic for Hamilton. First, it unsettled the rear of the car, and second, it left him ‘painfully’ low on energy later in the lap.
On the other side of the garage, Leclerc also complained about deployment problems, so the issue wasn’t confined to one car.
“Watch and listen to this,” said Davidson. “Look at that! That massive acceleration from mid-corner to the exit is absolutely not right. He’s getting, I’m guessing, a full 350kW of deployment here, which you shouldn’t really be having because you want to save it for elsewhere in the lap.
“It’s just lighting up the rear wheels. He can’t hang onto it and isn’t expecting it.
“It’s painful to listen to, let alone being in the car. These are the kind of teething troubles the teams are going to have to face this year.”
Ferrari apologised to Lewis Hamilton after Australian Grand Prix qualifying
During Q2, Hamilton said to interim race engineer Carlo Santi: “I keep running out of power, mate, what’s going on?”
He was able to progress to the top-ten shoot-out, but it looks as if Ferrari weren’t able to extract the full potential of their package. That can be said for every team at this stage in the learning process, but the problems were particularly pronounced in the SF-26.
After the session ended, Santi said, ‘We are P7. Sorry Lewis, it was a bit messy’, which may have been a reference to the erratic deployment.
Cedric Michel-Grosjean is with Ferrari in Melbourne but he will be observing Santi for the next few races before he takes over as Hamilton’s permanent engineer. He arrived late due to serving a period of gardening leave after he left McLaren.
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