Lewis Hamilton issues 'misleading' explanation behind Ferrari change

Lewis Hamilton has confirmed he has not used Ferrari's simulator for race preparation since the Canadian Grand Prix at the end of May, believing it was a tool which "mislead" him. 

The seven-time world champion found throughout his debut Ferrari season that the simulator was actively misleading him, producing setups that bore little resemblance to how the SF-25 behaved on track. 

He tried persistently to make it work but the correlation between the virtual car and the real one was not there, echoing problems he experienced during his final years at Mercedes.

It triggered the 41-year-old to change his race preparation and stop using the simulator, something which has seen his form improve dramatically. 

Since ending his use of the simulator, Hamilton has secured a race win and two further podiums, putting him just 32 points adrift of Kimi Antonelli in the title fight.

Asked if he has used the simulator since Canada, Hamilton told select media, including RacingNews365: "No."

 Pushed on how much this has helped, he responded with a smile: "Massively.

"I tried all last year with it, but as I said, when I was at Mercedes for the first few years I didn't use it. As it continued to develop, there was a point where we didn't use it.

"I've been driving simulators since 1997 and they can be really powerful and really useful tools, but they can also mislead you.

"I found all last year particularly that was the case, and then in previous years when I was at Mercedes it was very similar, so that's why I didn't use it. Since I stopped, my performance has gone much, much better."