Lewis Hamilton has ‘heard’ that McLaren’s Miami GP upgrades were much better than they expected

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Lewis Hamilton has “heard” that McLaren’s updates at the 2026 F1 Miami Grand Prix worked a lot better than they expected, which was not the case for Ferrari in Florida.

Every team bar Aston Martin unveiled upgrades at Hard Rock Stadium last week, having had an extended break since the Japanese Grand Prix in March to refine their development path ahead of the Miami GP. Ferrari were the busiest team of all, after they unveiled 11 upgrades.

McLaren had also utilised the break from the cancellations of the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to push through seven updates for the Miami GP. Yet the papaya crew still have more to come next time out in Canada, as it is believed that they only revealed 60% of their parts.

Mercedes also opted to keep their powder largely dry in America with two upgrades for the so-far dominant W17, as the Silver Arrows are waiting until the Canadian Grand Prix on May 22-24 to debut theirs. Yet Ferrari still failed to challenge for a podium finish in the Miami GP.

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Lewis Hamilton admits Ferrari’s Miami upgrades did not pay off as much as McLaren’s

Charles Leclerc hauled his Ferrari SF-26 onto the F1 Sprint podium with P3, but Lando Norris won the Miami Sprint in a comfortable McLaren one-two with Oscar Piastri. Hamilton’s P6 in the Miami GP after Leclerc’s post-race penalty also marked the best that Ferrari could clinch.

READ MORE: The best moments of Lewis Hamilton’s career in Formula 1

Seeing McLaren usurp Ferrari as Mercedes’ main rival has left Hamilton with the sense that the Scuderia have to understand why their upgrades did not deliver as well. The seven-time champion has even “heard” that McLaren did not expect their upgrades to pay off as much.

“Mercedes did bring improvements, just not the same as others,” Hamilton said, via quotes by RacingNews365. “They had like two, and we had eight or something. Their package is coming next race.

“The team worked incredibly hard to run those components, and it has taken a step but the others have also taken a step. I heard McLaren brought a step, but that it was worth much more than they anticipated. That’s not how we’ve experienced ours.

“So, definitely they’re doing something different. Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull are doing something different with the front wing to us. So, we need to look into that, to see whether or not there’s something we can improve on.

“Just look at everyone else’s wing and look at ours, you’ll see it looks different. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the whole thing. But I wonder what that’s doing, because others seem to have it and they improved.”

Hamilton’s damage from his first-lap collision with Franco Colapinto in Miami hindered what the Briton could achieve in the Grand Prix, while Leclerc was fighting Piastri for P3 before he spun on the last lap. Leclerc dropped it all on his own while trying to put pressure on Piastri.

The damage meant Hamilton finished 53.753s adrift as Mercedes ace Andrea Kimi Antonelli beat Norris to win the Miami GP, while Leclerc’s 20s penalty demoted him to P8 after taking the finish in P6. Leclerc was only 0.7s from McLaren’s Piastri before he spun on the final lap.

McLaren will now hope that Mercedes’ upgrades in Canada do not re-open their advantage, having closed the gap with their updates in Miami focused on improving the aero efficiency of the MCL40. Norris’ race pace was better than Antonelli’s, but he lost out in the pit stops.