Lewis Hamilton explains meeting with senior Ferrari figures over F1 documents

Lewis Hamilton has revealed he has held a series of meetings with senior Ferrari bosses after preparing documents on where the team must improve.

Hamilton's time with Ferrari has largely been underwhelming in his first half-season, and he remains without a grand prix podium after 12 races, although he did win the China sprint and finish third in the shorter Miami race.

The Briton has been struggling with a number of areas of the SF-25, including engine braking, and the brakes themselves after switching to Brembo materials from the Carbon Industrie equipment Mercedes uses, but a breakthrough has been made in recent weeks.

This came after Hamilton moved towards Charles Leclerc's set-up, and has out-qualified the Monegasque in three of the last four races, and was within a tenth in Austria.

Following a fourth-place finish at Silverstone, F1 embarked on a two-week break before the Belgian Grand Prix, during which time, Hamilton revealed the meetings he held with senior Ferrari figures, including chairman John Elkann, CEO Benedetto Vigna and team boss Fred Vasseur over documents he had prepared.

"I was at the factory [across the] two weeks, a couple of days each week, Hamilton explained to media, including RacingNews365.

"We did preparation—going over where we were at the previous race, things that we need to change, I held a lot of meetings.

"So I’ve called on lots of meetings with the heads of the team. I’ve sat with John,  Benedetto, and Fred in several meetings. 

"I’ve sat with the head of our car development, with Loïc [Serra], and also the heads of different departments — talking about the engine for next year, the front suspension, the rear suspension, things that I want, and issues that I have with this car.

"I’ve sent documents. So, throughout the year, after the first few races, I did a full document for the team. Then, during this break, I had another two documents that I sent in, and then I came in and wanted to address those. 

"Some of it is structural adjustments that we need to make as a team in order to get better in all the areas we want to improve, and the other one was really about the car—the current issues that I have, some things that I do want to take on to next year’s car, and some that we need to work on changing.

"We did development, and tried the 2026 car for the first time and started work on that. 

"Thirty engineers come into the room, and you sit and debrief with every single one of them, so it is a big, big push."