"Party mode" theory offered to explain Mercedes' F1 qualifying advantage

Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes' rapid qualifying pace in the 2026 Formula 1 season is down to a power unit setting similar to "party mode" from his time with the team.

In the two qualifying sessions held so far at the Australian Grand Prix and China for the sprint, Mercedes has demonstrated a significant margin over the opposition, which doesn't translate into a clear race pace advantage.

The Chinese Grand Prix sprint on Saturday followed a similar pattern to the Melbourne race, with George Russell battling with the Ferraris in the early stages, before eventually pulling clear to win.

Lewis Hamilton "knows how it works" at Mercedes from his ultra-successful tenure with the team, and believes it has the use of a different engine mode that generates its qualifying gain.

“I was in Mercedes for a long, long time,” said Hamilton, who was third in Saturday's sprint.

“So I know how it works there. And in qualifying, they have another mode that they're able to go to, bit like party mode back in the day. And once they get to Q2 they switch that on, and we don't have that, whatever that is.

“And then in the race, they obviously don't have that mode. They still obviously have an advantage overall. And we've got to figure out what that is. But there's something more they're able to extract, particularly in Q2.”

He said: “You see in Q1, we're not that far away. And then all of a sudden, it's like a huge step. One tenth in Q1 behind, I think it was, and then all of sudden it's another half a second. It's a big step.”

Having led the sprint and finished third after struggling with tyre wear, Hamilton made it clear that he’s pleased with the Ferrari SF-26, and enjoying what he can do with it in races.

“The team have done a great job this weekend,” he said.

“The car has been feeling great. It was so much fun in the race. It's the first time I'd really done a long run this weekend as well. So unfortunately, I struggled with my left front tyre, which ultimately demoted me to third.

“But nonetheless, to have two Ferraris up here, I think, is really a testament to all the great work everyone's doing back at the factory and everyone here at the track. So I hope we can make some steps closer, maybe to Mercedes in quali and then looking forward to tomorrow.”

Hamilton also stressed that he has no concerns about safety issues at starts, having successfully ducked past a slow-moving Kimi Antonelli off the line in the sprint.

"I think it's more exciting,” he said when asked by Crash.net about the safety debate.

“When we all get off exactly the same, it's boring. So, and I don't think it's dangerous. There are some people that when developing an engine they've taken certain decisions in order to get power.

“We took specific decisions or our team did, to make sure we got good starts. George got just as good a start as I did. And so I think it will eventually fizzle out, and be similar.”