Felipe Massa's former race engineer, Rob Smedley, said he had asked around inside the Ferrari garage about Lewis Hamilton's approach to simulator work, only to be met with 'shrugged shoulders' in response. Back in Miami, Hamilton had already revealed that he no longer planned to rely on the simulator as part of his race-weekend preparation. Since then, the early signs have done little to challenge that decision, with some of his strongest performances of the year coming without any simulator work beforehand. The seven-time world champion secured his first podium of the season in Shanghai during the first race weekend in which he opted not to use the simulator, before repeating the feat in Montreal to claim his second podium since joining Ferrari. Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Smedley revealed that he had spoken to several people within Ferrari about Hamilton's decision to skip simulator work, but received little more than shrugged shoulders in response: "I spoke to a couple of guys there who kind of shrugged their shoulders when I asked about it. "He said that he didn't - he refused to go and do his work on the simulator in Canada. And that's what gave him the freedom because he thinks that the simulator was perhaps dragging him in directions that he didn't like. So he said, 'I'm not going to do it this time.' And then, of course, he has a sample size of one. All of a sudden, it's statistically true that if you don't go on the simulator, you're on the podium.". Hamilton confirms simulator plans are off the table: 'It's not a necessity' After the race in Canada, Hamilton explained that two of his strongest performances came on weekends when he hadn't used the simulator at all, insisting it has never been an