James Hinchcliffe says Ferrari couldn’t follow ‘number one rule of engineering’ with Miami upgrade

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Ferrari may have made too many changes to their 2026 F1 car all at once at the Miami Grand Prix, James Hinchcliffe says.

Coming into the weekend after an extended break, Ferrari were hopeful of catching Mercedes with a major upgrade package, but it increasingly looks as if McLaren have become the Silver Arrows’ nearest challengers instead.

Ferrari brought 11 upgrades to Miami, more than any other team, but only scored 22 points on the Sprint weekend. Charles Leclerc’s last-lap damage hurt them, but they ultimately lacked the speed to finish on the podium.

Ferrari’s Miami Grand Prix upgrade gives engineers a headache

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Hinchcliffe said Ferrari didn’t have the ‘freedom’ to make gradual changes, which would have been the most prudent approach.

They were able to test their innovations on a Monza filming day during the break, but such opportunities are heavily limited by the regulations. They were wary of losing too many points if they held updates back.

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As Ferrari review the performance of the heavily-modified SF-26 before Canada, it will be difficult to ‘isolate’ exactly which parts underdelivered.

Hinchcliffe said: “This is the number one rule of engineering: make one change at a time, so you can isolate what’s actually better and worse. They don’t have that freedom, with no testing and a single practice session.

“They’re bolting on 11 or 12 different components, and it really makes the job for the engineers and the drivers difficult to isolate what’s helping, what’s changing, what’s hurting. All of these things work together.

“It’s massively challenging to bring such a large list of upgrades. They were doing a great job of maximising the car they had for the race until they had the spin at the end.”

Rival F1 technical director explains why Ferrari approach was flawed

While there was clearly pressure to make demonstrable progress after such a long gap, not every team brought an extensive package. Audi and Haas only bolted on three new parts between them, while Mercedes have held back most of their innovations until Canada.

With both Miami and Montreal designated as Sprint weekends, there is limited practice running to trial any developments. One F1 technical director explained to Lawrence Barretto that, while transformative upgrades make headlines, they can also cause lasting problems.

“They’ve only had 90 minutes of practice, and it might just be that they’ve brought too much stuff,” Barreto said of Ferrari.

• READ MORE: F1 paddock rumours suggest Ferrari have a ‘serious’ engine problem after Miami Grand Prix

“I was talking to one technical director ahead of the weekend, and he was like, ‘What if we bring all these bits, and there’s one bit that doesn’t work, it’s going to take us ages to work out which bit is the problem?'”

Lando Norris challenged Kimi Antonelli for the win on Sunday and thinks McLaren could have replicated their Sprint triumph with a smarter strategy. That’s closer than Ferrari have come to beating Mercedes at any point this year.

McLaren have occupied the second step on the podium at the last two races and their two-three in Miami suggests they will be first to catch their engine suppliers.