The Suzuka weekend proved to be the most difficult one so far for Lewis Hamilton in the 2026 Formula 1 season. During the Japanese Grand Prix, the seven-time world champion struggled to match the pace of the other top teams, losing several positions—especially in the closing stages of the race—when he dropped from third to a final sixth place. In several on-track battles, a significant deficit in straight-line speed compared to his rivals became evident, and this was precisely the area on which the Ferrari driver focused while analyzing his performance.
Hamilton: “I need to understand where I was losing power”
After spending the opening phase of the race in sixth position, closely following the trio fighting for the podium—Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and George Russell—Hamilton received a timely opportunity thanks to the arrival of the Safety Car, which allowed him to change tyres and gain two positions. At the restart came the best moment of the British driver’s Sunday, as he overtook Russell to move up into third place, albeit temporarily: “The race was pretty terrible overall because I was in third position and ended up losing places,” Hamilton admitted. “I just need to understand where I was losing all that power. I had a real lack of power, particularly in the second stint, but for most of the race, right from the start, I couldn’t keep up with the others because of the lack of power.”
The power issue turned into a genuine puzzle with no clear explanation for the Ferrari driver: “I really don’t understand… I had a full tank of fuel and I was managing everything as I was asked, but for some reason today I was just lacking power. So I need to understand whether there’s something wrong with the car or not. Still, we scored some points. I think this weekend we were a bit off the pace from the beginning. But the race started well, I just had power issues.”
Battles ruined by lack of power
His account of the Japanese Grand Prix describes a race filled with battles in which Hamilton was unable to defend as effectively as he normally would, ultimately being overtaken in spectacular fashion—such as Charles Leclerc’s move around the outside of Turns 1 and 2, or George Russell’s power-assisted pass on the straight: “I was defending the whole time. It felt like everyone around me had more power today. So I need to try and understand why. With Charles, it wasn’t much of a battle. I mean, somehow he had more power than me. Same car, I need to understand why. He did a great job finishing third.”
And yet, what happened during the first half of the race had initially seemed to swing things in Hamilton’s favor. The British driver had opted to extend his opening stint, benefiting from the Safety Car and allowing him to approach the second phase of the race on Hard tyres that were 4–5 laps fresher than those of his rivals: “I managed the tyres really well during the stint, but then I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the pace to keep up, and it’s never fun when you’re just barely hanging on to a group. Even after putting on new tyres, I still couldn’t match the others, which is really puzzling and something I need to understand. I had issues with the front tyres, but above all with the power.”
The British driver therefore comes away with only eight points, but in the Drivers’ Championship standings he remains fourth, exactly eight points behind Charles Leclerc.
Lewis Hamilton’s Japanese Grand Prix was therefore a race defined by a mysterious technical handicap that left him defenseless against the charging pack. Based on the content of his post-race feedback, Ferrari will need to use the upcoming month-long break to diagnose whether the issue lies in the SF-26’s hardware or the energy deployment software before arriving in Miami.
