How Hamilton went from Miami Sprint delight to qualifying woe

Lewis Hamilton’s Saturday at the Miami Grand Prix provided an encapsulation of the start of his Ferrari career as delight at Sprint success swiftly turned to disappointment following an early qualifying exit.

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Hamilton strategy call made due to extreme ‘struggle’Back down to earth in qualifying Leclerc misery deepens Ferrari concern Sky Sports F1’s Miami GP schedule

Following his blockbuster switch to the Italian team after 12 years at Mercedes, Hamilton appeared to have kickstarted his Ferrari career by taking pole and winning the Sprint at the second round of the season in China in late March.

However, he was disqualified from the full-length race in Shanghai the next day due to a technical breach on his car, and in the next three rounds could only produce a best qualifying effort of seventh and a best race finish of fifth, while being comfortably outperformed by team-mate Charles Leclerc.

Early on Saturday, in Miami, the Sprint format brought the seven-time world champion respite once more as an early call to switch from intermediates to slick tyres on the drying surface saw him jump from an under-threat sixth to a third-placed finish behind the McLarens.

While the result only offered up six points, which didn’t alter his position of seventh in the Drivers’ Championship, Hamilton couldn’t hold back his joy at a rare positive moment.

“Oh man, I’m so happy with that,” Hamilton told the crowd in his immediate on-track interview after the Sprint. “You know, it’s been a tough year so far.”

Hamilton strategy call made due to extreme ‘struggle’

While Hamilton was pleased with the result, it didn’t appear to be lost on him that it had come largely because of a well-timed strategy gamble, rather than particularly strong pace.

He told Sky Sports F1: “It was my call [to pit]. But it was coming from the fact I was struggling so much on the intermediates.

“I was losing pace and I couldn’t keep up with the guys ahead. The tyres had grained front and rear and I was just a passenger at this point.

“I was seeing the dry line, and I thought ‘we have to do something otherwise I will lose more places’.

“I wish I did it a lap before but happy I made it. The car felt great after that and to get third from seventh is good work.”

On this occasion Hamilton didn’t have the measuring stick of his team-mate Leclerc, who crashed out on his lap from the pit lane to the grid as heavy rain caught him by surprise.

The chaotic nature of the race and Leclerc’s absence from it made it difficult to assess how much hope Ferrari could carry into Grand Prix qualifying.

Back down to earth in qualifying

While it’s fair to say Hamilton was far from getting carried away by his Sprint display, what followed in qualifying was about as bad as could have been expected.

The 40-year-old had to scramble his way through Q1, burning an extra set of fresh soft tyres to escape from the drop zone in the closing moments after a big lock-up had ruined his first run.

After that, it wasn’t much of a surprise when a poor second run in Q2 and another lock-up at the same corner – Turn 17 – led to elimination and a humbling P12 on the grid.

Hamilton attempted to put on a brave face but admitted to Sky Sports F1 that Ferrari are struggling to understand what is going wrong as they continue to fall spectacularly short of their pre-season expectation of being title challengers.

“We will keep trying. We are only six races in but we are struggling big time,” Hamilton said.

“We are trying our hardest not to make big set-up changes but no matter what we do it’s so inconsistent every time we go out.

“We have problems with brakes, problems with this instability that we are struggling with and we are generally not quick enough. Just to get through to Q3 is tough for us.

“Once you are on the backfoot, it’s hard to pick up the points. Tomorrow will be hard work but we will try again. It’s the same thing for me, I’m used to it but I will keep trying.

“And I will be back at the factory next week and just keep going.”

Leclerc misery deepens Ferrari concern

For the previous three rounds, there were signs that Leclerc was getting to grips with the SF-25 as he backed up successive fourth place finishes in Japan and Bahrain with the team’s first Grand Prix podium of the season in Saudi Arabia.

However, the Monegaque was downcast about the car’s performance on Friday, and after qualifying eighth, confirmed to Sky Sports F1 on Saturday that he thinks it’s performing the worst it has all season.

“There was something strange in qualifying, something off. I was completely out of the window of the car for some reason,” Leclerc said.

“I started Q1 and we had to change the car a lot to get to where I wanted in Q3, which is very unusual but it never felt good and the performance of the car has been very bad.

“The feeling is not great. But it’s the way it is. It’s just frustrating because when you do your best and the best is P8, with a Ferrari it hurts and the two Williams in front of us, I didn’t do any mistakes… we are just not fast enough.”

Asked whether it was his worst experience of the season, Leclerc replied: “Yes. It’s also a track that’s different than other tracks. There’s a lot of low speed corners and at the moment we are paying the price in those corners.”

Ferrari’s best hope of success in Sunday’s race appears to be the possibility of rain throwing up more chaos, but even that might be not enough.

It appears highly likely that the team will head to the first of their two home races this season at Imola in two weeks’ time under extreme pressure to reverse a dismal start to 2025.