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Hamilton’s Ferrari Problem
Look carefully at Lewis Hamilton’s onboard footage during the first formation lap at Sepang and something very obvious emerges.
Hamilton is clear, energetic and decisive when speaking to his team.
The responses he receives are almost the exact opposite — vague, hesitant and full of uncertainty.
It sounds like people from completely different leagues trying to communicate without ever quite finding the same language.
The moment Hamilton realised he had a problem, he contacted his race engineer immediately. But instead of receiving clear instructions, he was met with questions, uncertainty and more questions.
It took Ferrari more than 2.5 minutes before they finally accepted Hamilton’s earlier suggestion: reboot the car.
Now compare that with Red Bull.
They needed just 25 seconds, and Max received a simple, precise instruction:
“Fail 1.”
Almost immediately, his car was back up to speed.
After almost two years together, it is almost painful to watch the difference.
Hamilton clearly knows what he needs from the car.
Ferrari still seem to be struggling to understand what he is telling them.
Let’s hope they find a common language soon. 🏎️🔴
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What Are Deployment Limits and Why Are They Needed?
After the scary Suzuka accident between Colapinto and Ollie Bearman, the FIA introduced deployment limits for all cars.
These limits are specific to certain corners and sectors and are updated for every race.
The idea is simple: prevent huge speed differences between cars.
At Suzuka, Colapinto had already used all his available battery energy while defending from Bearman. By the time they reached the Spoon approach, Colapinto had little or no electrical deployment left.
Bearman, meanwhile, had saved his battery for precisely that part of the lap.
The result was a massive closing-speed difference. Bearman tried to avoid Colapinto, went off the track and ended up in the barriers in a huge shunt.
In theory, deployment limits should help prevent exactly this kind of situation by controlling how much electrical power can be deployed in critical sections of the track.
They are designed to improve safety.
Let’s hope they are used only as intended. 🏎️🔋
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FIA’s Major 2026 Mistakes so far
F***-up #1 — Monaco
Do you remember the Monaco GP podium?
Do you remember the three previous versions of it?
That’s right — we apparently needed three different versions before finally arriving at the correct podium, after court rulings and legal battles.
The reason?
The FIA had failed to correctly measure the pit-lane distance from entry to exit, including its slight curvature.
As Alpine demonstrated rather theatrically, measuring the distance between two white lines in Monaco is apparently not that complicated.
F***-up #2 — Silverstone
Moving on to Silverstone — the race weekend with almost 600,000 fans in attendance, plus millions more watching around the world.
And what did they get at the end?
A Safety Car-led procession.
The FIA’s internal communication and procedures resulted in the restart taking one lap longer than originally planned.
That was all it took.
F***-up #3 — Sepang
And then came last weekend.
First, the updated software parameters for wet conditions were apparently wrong, producing the bizarre scenes of F1 cars looking more like common rental karts.
Then came the long wait — and the apparent failure to follow the FIA’s own procedures when restarting the race.
Let’s hope this list does not get any longer.
Because so far in 2026, the FIA is starting to look like the Emperor with no clothes. 🏎️🤦♂️
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Tomorrow, best. 🏎️