Hamilton Details Ferrari’s Tyre Nightmare as Leclerc Demands Upgrade Answers: “Back to the Drawing Board”

Ferrari’s Saturday at the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a frustrating exercise in damage limitation. While the front of the pack engaged in a flat-out sprint to the checkered flag, the mood inside the Maranello garage was considerably more subdued, with both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc pointing to fundamental flaws in the car’s current setup and development trajectory.

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The core issue was a dual-threat handicap: a chronic inability to generate tyre temperature, combined with an agonizingly slow response to the mid-season upgrade war being waged by McLaren and Red Bull.

Hamilton’s Fight With the Rubber

For Hamilton, the Baku weekend was dictated entirely by an uncooperative chassis that simply refused to fire up the Pirelli rubber. When asked if Ferrari was simply losing out on straight-line speed, the seven-time champion was quick to correct the narrative.

“No, for me all weekend it was switching the tires on, just all weekend,” Hamilton explained. “I don’t think I ever really got the tires to switch on, and I can’t quite grasp why that is the case with our car”.

Lewis Hamilton with his team | Photo Credit: Scuderia Ferrari

Despite finding a brief window of acceptable pace at the end of his first stint, the switch to the medium compound was disastrous, resulting in tires that “wouldn’t work the whole time”. Compounding the grip issues was a severe disadvantage in power deployment compared to their rivals.

“These guys just seem to just power, power, power everywhere, which is pretty crazy to see,” Hamilton noted, explaining that the deficit forced him to drive defensively and block rivals in unusual zones, such as turns two, four, and five.

Leclerc Sounds the Upgrade Alarm

While Hamilton was busy wrestling with cold tires on track, his teammate was looking directly at the glaring data sheets in the paddock. Charles Leclerc acknowledged that while the high-speed, 90-degree corners of Baku naturally did not suit the Ferrari, the real issue is that their rivals have successfully bolted on more raw speed.

“I don’t think this track suits particularly our car,” Leclerc stated. “But it’s also true to say that I think McLaren and Red Bull did a step forward with the upgrades they are bringing and that they have brought recently”.

Charles Leclerc | Photo Credit: Scuderia Ferrari

In the hyper-aggressive development race of modern F1, standing still means moving backward. “They did a step forward that we didn’t do,” Leclerc warned. “And we must react because then losing some pace now is going to be obviously always very difficult to then take it back”.

Looking to the Next Round

With the paddock immediately packing up to head to a much hotter climate for the next race weekend, Hamilton is holding out hope that the blistering track temperatures will naturally solve the SF-26’s chronic warm-up problems. However, both drivers agree that relying on the weather forecast isn’t a sustainable championship strategy.

Leclerc confirmed that the factory has “a few things coming” down the pipeline to answer Red Bull and McLaren. But as Hamilton bluntly concluded, the team ultimately needs to head “back to the drawing board” to figure out how to squeeze more performance out of their current package.

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