Hamilton delighted with clear progress in Miami despite low-key performance from Ferrari

Despite the SF25's low-key and disappointing performance in Miami, Ferrari's seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton was left to praise the progress he has made, revealing that he has started to feel more comfortable in his car.

Ferrari appeared to have lacked speed over the Miami Grand Prix weekend, having struggled for one-lap pace in qualifying. Although their race pace looked better, it was still not enough to compete for top positions.

Having only qualified 12th in the main qualifying, Lewis Hamilton started on the hard tyre. Although the Briton appeared to have reasonable race pace, he spent the opening stages of the race behind the Haas of Esteban Ocon, losing the connection to the front of the field.
The seven-time F1 champion managed to overtake the Frenchman after an intense fight, and he could then capitalize on the virtual safety car interruption which allowed him to gain around eight second compared to a standard pit visit.

His team-mate Charles Leclerc started on the mediums, and was stuck behind the Williams of Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon during the opening stint. He also wanted to make use of the virtual safety car to complete a cheap pit stop, but the lights went green when he entered the pit lane of the Miami International Autodrome.

After the pit stops, Leclerc overtook his former team-mate Sainz, but he found Hamilton right behind himself. The Briton asked to be let past, given he was on the faster mediums at the point, and Ferrari allowed it after hesitating for three laps. As Hamilton could not motor on, Leclerc was allowed to retake the position with the Scuderia ending the first of three US races in a distant P7 and P9.

Despite the SF25's low-key performance in Miami, Hamilton was left to praise the progress he has made, revealing that he has started to feel more comfortable in his car.

"Overall, we’ve made some solid steps forward this weekend. P8 isn’t where we aim to be of course, and there are definitely learnings to take moving forward, but considering where we started it was a decent recovery.

"I’m starting to feel more at one with the car, which is encouraging, and I’m as motivated as ever to be fighting at the front. We’re still lacking a bit of pace, but everyone is working incredibly hard behind the scenes and we’re hopeful of making progress in the coming races. We’ll just keep pushing and stay focused on the work ahead."

"Firstly, I generally 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.

"It might not show necessarily today, but starting 12th it was very hard to overtake here. I got onto the medium tyre and I felt the car really come alive and I felt super optimistic in that moment."

Explaining why he asked Ferrari to swap position after the pit stops, the seven-time world champion insisted that he felt so comfortable in his car that he hoped he can chase down Mercedes rival Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

"All I could see is a Mercedes ahead and I was thinking maybe we can get up to sixth or something, but we lost a lot of time in those laps [behind Leclerc].

"I was clearly good for it in that moment, and I didn't think the decision came quick enough. I have no problems with either team or with Charles, but I think we could do better."

Reflecting on his words and tone on the radio, Hamilton stated the he just wanted to make sure that Ferrari made a decision quickly in order to have enough time to try and chase down Antonelli.

"Fred came to my room [after the race]. I just put my hand on his shoulder, like calm down, don't be so sensitive. I could have said way worse things on the radio, like some of the things that 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 get the most peaceful messages come through in the heat of battle.

"It wasn't even anger, it wasn't like I was effing and blinding – just make a decision! You're sitting there on the chair, you've got the stuff in front of you, you make the decision quick. For me, I'm like 'we're in a panic, we're trying to keep the car on the track, and a computer thinks fast'."