Lewis Hamilton makes a damning admission at the 2026 Japanese GP as the seven-time Formula 1 world champion confesses he has no confidence in his Ferrari SF-26 at the Suzuka Circuit.
Things looked to be turning a corner for the 41-year-old following his struggles throughout the 2025 F1 season, as he came up just short of a podium in Australia in this year’s opener, before finally securing his first podium for the Scuderia last time out in China.
He has shown excellent speed and race management through the first two rounds of the ongoing campaign, and even seemed to be carrying that speed into Japan as he finished Free Practice 1 in sixth – but with a lap he failed to optimise with two yellow sectors.
That indicated there might have been more lap-time to come from the veteran driver, but Free Practice 2 proved to be a setback for all involved at Maranello as the team slipped well behind McLaren and Mercedes.
Oscar Piastri stopped the session for McLaren after punching in a 1:30.133, ahead of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell with Lando Norris in fourth. Then came Charles Leclerc, the lead Ferrari car, who was seven tenths off the pace.
His British teammate was slightly further back at +0.847 in sixth as both drivers appeared to struggle with the upgraded Ferrari package, leaving Hamilton disgruntled as he makes damning admission at the 2026 Japanese GP.
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“I am very slow because I have no confidence in the car,” Hamilton said over the team radio, after completing his race simulations. For a man known for his exceptional speed on Sundays, it’s not a good sign of how the SF-26 is handling.
Hamilton has hope for rest of 2026 Japanese GP weekend
Fortunately, all is not lost for the 105-time Grand Prix winner as he still has Free Practice 3 and an extra hour at Suzuka to figure out how to dial his car in, as well as making any changes overnight based on the data the team has.
He will then head into qualifying later on Saturday and will aim to take his first pole position since the 2023 Hungarian GP, although it will be a tall order based on the advantage Mercedes have shown at the start of the F1 2026 season and now with McLaren in the mix.
Regardless, Hamilton remains relatively upbeat as he feels he still has hope for rest of his 2026 Japanese GP weekend.
“Well, I mean, we’ll work on it. I think it’s just the way of this track, you know,” Hamilton said in the TV pen. “It’s a massively demanding circuit. It’s amazing to drive but getting the right balance… And I think, interestingly, there’s something…
“I think it’s just something in how this car is set up. There’s kind of some similarities to what I felt last year, so we’re just working on that. So, I’m confident overnight we can find something and get it to a better place. But it’s an awesome circuit.
“But you need to be able to sit on the rear and be comfortable that it’s going to stay with you. And today I had the snaps. It just can’t seem to match the other guys.
“So I think we’ll do a deep dive tonight. We’ll get some interesting readings from the simulator. But I feel like I’ve got a bit of a north star. It’s just how do we get there. And so we’re going to try and figure that out.”
