Lewis Hamilton: “I lost a lot of time when I had fresh tyres” | F1 Miami GP. Lewis Hamilton reflects on his frustrating Miami GP.

Eighth place for the seven-time world champion
Lewis Hamilton finished the Miami Grand Prix in eighth position, right behind his teammate Charles Leclerc.

There was tension over the radio between the two, with the Ferrari pit wall instructing Charles Leclerc to let Lewis Hamilton through after a few laps’ delay. Later, the former Mercedes driver gave the position back to his teammate since he had not managed to catch up to his successor, Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Lewis Hamilton was on medium tyres, while Charles Leclerc had hard tyres during the second stint. That’s why Hamilton wanted Leclerc to let him through immediately to maximise the advantage of his compound.

“In the beginning with the hard tyres I struggled a lot with grip and lost a lot of time behind Esteban Ocon’s Haas, especially because the track had reset due to the rain,” said Lewis Hamilton. “Then, when I finally put on the fresh tyres, I felt like I had some pace and wanted to make the most of it, but I lost a lot of time due to the situation that developed. Leclerc was struggling in front of me with the compound I had earlier, and I lost several seconds. Of course, I was frustrated. It’s not that I was unhappy with the management, but it wasn’t clear what the team wanted to do. We’ll discuss it internally. Certainly, neither Charles Leclerc nor I are where we’d like to be. Us behind Williams? Yes, James Vowles did a great job. We have a lot of work to do and we need to find performance.” – the seven-time Formula 1 world champion concluded.