Scuderia Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton was pretty satisfied with his F1 Miami GP, in spite of the final position he managed to achieve on track.
How the day broke down
The seven times World Champion only ended in P8, with former Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz almost overtaking him on the final lap.
While he had managed to secure a second Sprint race podium for the Italian Scuderia only the day before, Hamilton only started 12th for the Grand Prix.
However, the former Mercedes driver was still pretty satisfied with his first American weekend in red.
“Firstly I genuinely enjoyed the race. I think this weekend, whilst we’re not as quick as we want to be, I feel like I had a better weekend in general.
“The result might not show necessarily today but I was 12th so very hard to overtake here, the cars were obviously so close. I got into the medium tyre and I felt the car really come alive and I felt super optimistic in that moment.”
The moment it all changed
The turning point of his race was right after the end of the Virtual Safety Car which followed Bortoleto’s retirement. Hamilton was on medium tyres, whereas his teammate Charles Leclerc sported harder tyres. Thus, he called for a position swap in order to take advantage of his softer tyres after both overtook Carlos Sainz.
“All I could see was the McLaren [it was in Antonelli in the Mercedes] up ahead and I was thinking maybe we can get up to 6th or something. But we lost a lot of time in those laps where Charles and I were passing.
“I was clearly quicker in that moment and I didn’t think the decision came quick enough. For sure in that time you’re like, ‘come on!‘”
Not long lasting consequences
However, in spite of what he had said on the radio in the heat of the moment, there are no hard feelings between the new teammates. Hamilton understands the dynamics of the situation as well as Leclerc, and believes that the F1 Miami GP won’t carry over any issues.
“But yeah, that’s really kind of it. I have no problems with either the team or with Charles. I think we can do better, but there’s a difference. The car is where we really need to improve. Ultimately we’re fighting for seventh and eighth.”
The issue between the drivers was also tackled by Ferrari’s Team Principal Fred Vasseur. Hamilton reported that the Frenchman hadn’t been too fazed by the instance which affected the Miami GP.
“Fred came to my room, I just put my hand on his shoulder and I’m like, ‘calm down. I could have said way worse things on the radio.’
“You have to see some of the things other people have said in the past. Some of it was sarcasm, you’ve got to understand that we’re under a huge amount of pressure within the cars.
“You’re never going to get the most peaceful messages come through in the heat of the battle. It was fine, we’ll take it,” summed up Hamilton, who has definitely had much more severe disagreements with teammates in the past with much more long lasting consequences.
Reasonable request
The Brit admitted that the time behind Leclerc severely impacted his own tyre performance, which led him to a harder time at the end of the race when he had to fend off Sainz’s assaults.
“Yeah, I lost quite a bit of the tyres in that, which is OK. We were battling for position at the end of the day, but it would have been great if we could have maybe done what Valtteri and I did back in Budapest years ago.We’d just move, see if I can catch them, if I can’t then move back.”
Could really a P6, maybe even P5 have been in the cards for the Ferrari driver had him been ahead? Nobody knows, but ultimately Antonelli and Albon respectively took these spots.
“But ultimately it didn’t work out. Whether or not we could have overtaken them at the end of the day, we were not quick enough. That’s probably where the frustration came from. But we’ll keep our heads up, we’ll keep pushing.”
All in all, even if the points haul is not as big as he could have hoped, Hamilton was still happy about his Miami GP especially because of his better feeling with the car.
“Yeah, I had a good day in general. Eighth doesn’t really look like that, but I feel optimistic for the future. I think this car really does have performance, but something’s holding us back at the moment.”
Overall a positive feeling
Acknowledging a problem is an important first step in order to work towards its resolution, and Hamilton doesn’t shy away from the amount of fine tuning needed in order to improve the performance of the SF-25.
“We’ve lost performance since China, and it’s there, it’s just we can’t use it until we get a fix for that. This is where we are. But in the meantime we can work on all the other stuff, processes.
“But as I said, I came from the same last week, I felt like I generally had a better weekend. To get the third yesterday was positive. With a better qualifying […] I only missed out by half a tenth.”
Lastly, Hamilton praised the consistency Williams has been sporting throughout the entirety of the 2025 F1 season but even more so in the Miami GP. The Grove based team has achieved two top 5 finishes so far with Alex Albon, who is right behind Hamilton in the drivers’standings.
“Still for us, we’re battling with the Williams here, so we’re clearly not as quick as we need to be. Williams did a great job this weekend.”
