Ferrari arrived in Miami with what many in the paddock considered the team's biggest upgrade package of the 2026 season. The Scuderia brought a meaningful set of new parts to Florida, and early signs were promising—Charles Leclerc topped the sprint weekend's only practice session, giving genuine hope that the SF-26 was closing the gap to the front.

Lewis Hamilton sat fourth in that same session. Then came SQ3, and the wheels came off—not from a lack of driving skill, but from a software gremlin that robbed both Ferrari drivers of straight-line speed when it mattered most.

Leclerc suffered a sudden power drop in the final stretch between Turns 16 and 17 on his only soft-tyre run in SQ3. Hamilton had the same issue on both main straights—a problem that directly contributed to the four-tenth gap between the two Ferrari drivers and left Max Verstappen splitting them on the grid.

Hamilton was refreshingly open about what he felt. "I think yesterday I lost three-tenths just because the software wasn't working properly. I was driving the same, but losing down the straights. In the race, it seemed that it continued from qualifying."

Hamilton came home seventh in the Sprint itself, crossing the line over 21 seconds behind race winner Lando Norris and well adrift of Leclerc in third. It wasn't a collapse in form—it was the same energy deployment problem repeating itself under race conditions. And Hamilton's comments afterward made clear he expects the team to act before qualifying for Sunday's grand prix.

"I think they're going to have to do some software changes or something to make sure that doesn't happen going into qualifying," he said. "Hopefully we have slightly better deployment. The setup is in the wrong place, definitely—we'll make some big changes going into qualifying."

Ferrari had reportedly been working on revised battery management and energy deployment algorithms specifically for this weekend, aiming to address the superclipping issues that have plagued the SF-26. Based on Hamilton's comments after the Sprint, that fix wasn't quite there yet—but with Sunday's qualifying looming, the pressure is on for the team to get it right.