Montreal was Groundhog Day for Hamilton - will Ferrari's upgrades make a difference?

Hamilton had another weekend of learning in Canada as new parts are finally on their way

For Lewis Hamilton the Canadian GP was very much a case of Groundhog Day, and not just because his race was spoiled by hitting one of the unfortunate animals and damaging his floor.

It was also yet another case of arriving at a track where he’s had a lot of success only to find that the unchanged Ferrari SF-25 behaves in a completely different manner to what he’s been used to at Mercedes. It’s a scenario that has been repeated at every venue this year.

As always it was a case of trying to improve session-by-session and find a way to get the best out of the car that he has.

The end result was a sixth place, and he was at least happier than in Spain a fortnight earlier, when he described it as his worst race ever.

He wasn’t too happy on Friday in Montreal, but P5 in qualifying was a decent outcome.

“We've progressed coming into today,” he said on Saturday afternoon. “So that is a positive. More often not we go through P1 and then P2, often at the previous races P2 has not been so great, because there's been something wrong with the car, like the floor is not working, or the rear wing is not working.

“There's always been something that meant that we're down on downforce or something.

“And so then you have a bad P2 and you're kind of recovering in P3. But we had a good, solid base yesterday, and then today, we made progress. We didn't change a huge amount, and the car felt solid. We moved forwards, which is I think a first this season. So I'm grateful to get through to Q3.”

When I asked in what areas he’d made progress he said: “I think probably today most progress came from my driving, adapting driving style. So just made a few changes of how I drove.

“This car drives so much different to what I had before. You go into low-speed corners and you're waiting and waiting; it doesn't want to turn.”

He underlined his point with a vivid demonstration of crossed arms – the racing driver sign language for terminal understeer.

In Sunday’s race Hamilton initially sat in P5 behind Oscar Piastri, but as early as lap 12 he lost a chunk of downforce after his collision with the unfortunate groundhog.

Thereafter he lost out to team mate Charles Leclerc and to Lando Norris, before the latter’s crash promoted him back to P6.

“Until the damage, I was kind of holding on to Piastri,” he said. “With the damage, then I started to drop off from Piastri, and then we probably should have stopped around a similar sort of time, but we for some reason stayed out and then I lost a ton of time, came out behind a bunch of people, got stuck behind people, just sitting there in no-man's land.

“But to still come away with a sixth it's a positive. I think if everything was perfect, if we had done everything right and we didn't have any problems, maybe we would have fourth.”

As noted he was in a much better place than he was after Spain, despite the relatively modest result. He could at least see signs of progress.

“I think mostly just me adapting,” he noted. “But I think this track really highlighted the weaknesses of the car, and I've never had a car understeer so much at low-speed here, just doesn't want to turn through Turn 2 and Turn 10. So definitely not my most favourite weekend, but the next one will be better.”

He added: "Just incremental steps. We've not had any upgrades or anything like that. So it's the same car for quite some time now, and so with the same package each weekend, I'm just challenging the guys. I'm constantly battling the engineers, asking questions.

“They set things up and this is how we always do it. And I'm like, Well, what about this? And so we work on trying things, and bit by bit, we are making progress. We've improved in our qualifying from Monaco onwards, which is positive.

“But ultimately, we need upgrades. We need an upgrade to be able to fight the guys up front.”

Hamilton and Leclerc have both mentioned upgrades on a consistent basis. Hitherto Fred Vasseur has been coy on commenting to the media. But after Montreal when I pushed him on the subject the Frenchman finally confirmed that something is coming “before UK,” with more to follow.

A performance boost before his home race would be welcome for Hamilton.

“It’s my first half of the year in a new team,” he said when I asked about the obvious frustration of having to wait. “It's interesting to see different how different teams work and operate.

“There's been times in my career where you've had a whole bunch of upgrades very, very early on in the season, and then you plough ahead very early, and then you stop and taper off. And then sometimes it's been slower.

“It's also in the last year of this generation of cars, it's harder to find performance. And also, you've got to be focused on the next year. With this car, hopefully we can still fight for a second in the constructors'. That would be great, yeah, but I want a car that can win next year, so that's priority.”

Hamilton has faced a lot of criticism this year given his struggles, but he insists that it’s all about the bigger picture.

“What all you guys don't see is what's happening in the background, and there's a lot going on. There's a lot that needs improving. A lot of things need to be changed. For me, I know we're not fighting for a win this year. I know we're not in the championship, which is not a great feeling.

“And also I know I'm in a period of getting accustomed to working with the team. foundation building and trying to steer them to make those changes so that next year we can have a car that can win, and we can then fight and be consistent and do have strategy and all those different things. So with that in mind, I'm okay, but obviously I want to win.

“And so when you're not competing at the front, you're not fighting for podiums, I'm definitely a little bit gutted with that. I was hoping today I'd have a fight for a podium, but we don't have the performance currently, so hopefully, with an upgrade, maybe at some stage, we'll be a bit sharper.”