“It was one of those days,” says Hamilton, disappointed after qualifying 13th for the Miami GP
Lewis Hamilton had to deal with traffic on his warm-up lap after the Mercedes driver retired in Q2 qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix, leaving him 13th to start Sunday’s race.
Hamilton had left late to make it out of Q1 and tried to do the same in Q2 but suffered from a lack of grip to start his final lap, with cameras catching the Brit struggling in the first couple of corners.
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When the seven-time world champion finally crossed the finish line, he was down in 13th place, more than two tenths behind teammate George Russell, who had just finished 10th. That made Hamilton ruin the timing of his last lap.
“It was one of those days,” said Hamilton, who had never qualified outside the top six in the US. “You know, not the best, I was hoping that there would be a few moments where the car felt halfway decent and I thought maybe I could get into Q3.
“But in the end I went out, they put me behind seven cars – or something like that – so I was like the last of the group in the last corner. [I] I had to reverse and lost all my temperature in the tires. When I started the lap I just had no grip.
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When asked how he planned to regroup ahead of Sunday’s race, Hamilton replied: “Well, there’s nothing I can do about what just happened. I can only try to prepare as best as possible and forget what happened today.
“It’s happening, and just really try to turn the negative into a positive tomorrow tomorrow, keep my head down and see if I can somehow fight my way through the field.”
HOW IT HAPPENED: Follow all the qualifying action for the Miami Grand Prix
Across the Mercedes garage, Russell’s only attempt in Q3 ended in sixth after Charles Leclerc’s crash brought out the red flags and gave no other driver a chance to improve on his lap. And while the Brit was happy to start so high, he admitted there was a factor of luck involved.
“I mean, I’m not going to be proud that we qualified P6, especially under the circumstances,” said Russell. “You know, we all push so hard, we work so hard with this car and we just don’t get the best out of it.
Russell qualified sixth for Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix
“Sometimes it flies; sometimes we really struggle with that and we’re lucky enough to start from P6 tomorrow – I’ll take it. It can be said that there is no luck because we have the time on the board. I don’t really know what to say to be honest. It’s a tricky thing, it’s a tricky one.”
Asked why it was so difficult for Mercedes this weekend, Russell replied: “I mean, I know why, the car doesn’t drive as well as it was and the inside feeling isn’t as good as it was in FP1.
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“FP1, everything went smooth, it was pretty clean, obviously we were top of the timesheets. But we were running right at the end of the session so we thought we were about three tenths behind Red Bull and it just seemed to get a little bit worse as the weekend went on.
He concluded: “And that rarely happens with us because it’s usually the other way around. So I don’t know. It’s a bit of an outlier, this track, this new tarmac, is unlike any other. But we need more, we’re working for more, we’re working so hard to get it, and it’s just not quite coming together right now.”