Lewis Hamilton reveals the 2026 British Grand Prix should be more like the Austrian GP than the Barcelona GP for Ferrari, as the Formula 1 world champion predicts their major weakness with the engine should be exposed.
Despite a good base of aerodynamics to combine with a strong chassis, Ferrari have lacked power compared to Mercedes throughout the ongoing campaign, and now Red Bull have also been adjusted to have the best internal combustion engine by the FIA.
Therefore, it’s unsurprising at the Austrian GP that the Silver Arrows’ Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, as well as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, all finished well clear of the 41-year-old and his team on June 28.
Spielberg is largely a straight line with just 10 corners, meaning that 75% of the lap is spent with the throttle pedal planted firmly to the floor, thus placing the emphasis on the power unit to do most of the leg work.
Despite an engine upgrade, Ferrari had failed to take the step forwards needed to close the gap and ultimately finished 26 seconds away from the victorious Russell, with under two seconds splitting the top three.
A three-stop strategy aimed at avoiding the hard tyre failed to work out and Hamilton came home a long way from the win with teammate Charles Leclerc in eighth, in what was a bitterly disappointing outcome just two weeks after Barcelona.
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There, the Brit had dominated the field to take his first victory of his career with the Scuderia by 19.5 seconds to Russell in second, and it appeared Maranello had gate-crashed the Mercedes championship battle.
Barcelona does offer hope that Austria may have just been a blip and they could bounce back at the British GP, but Hamilton believes this is not the case as he reveals the major weakness with the Ferrari engine should be exposed at Silverstone.
“It’s not that I’m not confident. It’s that the fact is, we’ve got long straights,” Hamilton told media, including Total-Motorsport.com. “I think this is going to be the most unprecedented weekend in terms of the power deployment.
“All us drivers have been talking in the driver’s chat just how poor the power is going to be through this track. We run out of battery power. There’s only a few corners to charge the engine.
“So the K [MGU-K/electrical battery] will be switched off for a large portion of the lap. And that’s where we will struggle probably the most.
“And I mean, the deficit could be twice as big.”
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Hamilton and Ferrari could look to 2022 British GP win for inspiration
But this is not the first time that Hamilton has found himself coming into the British GP as an underdog as he arrived to the 2022 edition at Silverstone with Mercedes on the backfoot at the start of the Ground Effect Era.
After winning eight constructors’ championships in a row, the team were clearly a step behind Ferrari and Red Bull with an underwhelming W13 package that suffered a narrow set-up window, issues with putting heat into the tyres and was plagued with drag.
But at Silverstone, Hamilton and his engineers managed to find the sweet spot as he qualified fifth but swiftly made his way up the order as Sergio Perez and Verstappen fell out of contention, leaving him battling the two Ferraris.
Showing excellent pace on the mediums, Hamilton took the fight to Leclerc and Carlos Sainz by extending his stint, maintaining an 19-second gap and pitting on Lap 34 to come back into the race just behind the pair.
He began to close to gap over the next five laps and looked to be in good stead to win the British GP, until a Lap 39 safety car caused the field to switch back to the softs – disadvantaging the W13 that took time to warm-up the rubber.
The picture swung away from Hamilton as he had to focus on defending Leclerc and Perez, previously 27 seconds behind, on his way to third whilst Sainz managed to escape away to win the race.
But it did prove how strong his pace at Silverstone is and how he is capable of understanding the track to such a degree that he can overturn the deficiencies of his cars, and that will serve as an inspiration heading into the next round 2026 F1 season.
“My engineers have been asking me,” Hamilton added. “Like, ‘How did you do it? What did you do? How do you normally run the car?’
“So I hope that I’ve steered them in the right direction. But we only have one practice session tomorrow, so it’s going to be definitely a challenge throughout.”
