Hamilton shows fight, but his Ferrari doesn’t pack a punch

The Miami Grand Prix delivered multiple fronts and tested one of those excellent racing weekends where there are several conversation points to perfect.

A great one who does not need to eclipse his relationships with the cause of the root with a team that was not close to an end of the stage on Sunday.

Lewis Hamilton’s radio messages became the highlight of the second half of the race, since he asked Ferrari to exchange positions between him and Charles Leclerc, with the last one in hard tires compared to the media that Hamilton was a race.

While Ferrari tried to solve the best to make his drivers, with Carlos Sainz in 2s behind, but Kimi Antonelli Potntiaty a getable 5s ahead, Hamilton complained when he initially had a position. Once the team told him that it would be an exchange, Hamilton responded sarcastically: “Yes, take a break for tea while doing it! Come on …”

There was an ironic later message joking if I should also let Sainz pass, after returning the position to Leclerc, since Hamilton seemed frustrated at the time Ferrari was making decisions.

“It was anger,” Hamilton said about his messages. “It was like ‘effing’ and ‘blinding’ and something like that. It’s like, ‘I make a decision! You’re sitting in the chair, you have things in front of you; I make the fast decision.’ This is how I was me;

“God, I mean, everything was pg at least, right?” I still have my fire in my belly.

“I’m not going to apologize for being a fighter. I’m not going to apologize to keep loving him. I know that everyone also they do, and I really believe that when we solve some of the problems we have the car, we will return to the fight [Red] Bulls You just can’t come quick enough.

“We will try something different in the next race. We will continue working on the processes. I expect a time when I may fight for a podium. That would be good.”

Even after extensive work in the garage, Ferrari could not take the car at an adequate speed in Miami. Mark Thompson/Getty Images

The attention focused on the complaints of Bothi pilots about the way the race was handled, but one of the two main areas of the group that came to the weekend seemed to be seeing progress. Team orders were required because both drivers fought for the same positions on the track, and although Hamilton was slightly assistant at the time of a virtual security car, he had shown a comparable pace for his teammate.

Far from Saudi Arabia two weeks ago: Hamilton was extremely descending and unable to obtain the performance of the car in a way in which he was happy. He read a stage, while Hamilton worked until the seventh place, while his seventh place this time was on par with what Leclerc was able to achieve.

“I really enjoyed the race,” he said. “I think this weekend, although we are not as fast as we want to be, I feel that I had a better weekend in general. The result might not necessarily show it today, but I was 12th. Very difficult to overcome here, the cars were obviously so close. Super optimistic at that time.

“All I could see is the [Mercedes] Go ahead, and I was thinking that perhaps we can reach the sixth or something. We solve a lot of time in those laps where Charles and I were fighting, and I was clearly faster at that time. I did not think the decision came quick enough.

“Sure, at that time you are like,” Come on! “But yes, that’s really a son. [focused]. Finally, we are fighting for the seventh and eighth, so … “

There is the main area of ​​concern for Ferrari. Two identical p7 finishes for Hamilton illegally a totally different response from the driver, and a totally different response from the director of his team Fred Vasseur, who initially worried any possible consequence of his drivers.

“Fred came to my room,” Hamilton said. “I simply put my hand on his shoulder and I thought,” friend, calm down. Don’t be so sensitive. “I could say very worse things on the radio: you listen to some of the things that others have said in the past.

“Look, you have to understand that we are under a lot of pressure inside the car. You will never receive the most peaceful messages in the heat of the battle.”

The report will be much more painful for Ferrari, he thought, since he was quite comfortably hit by the drivers of Alex Albon Williams and Bootes, in addition to Max Verstappen. But the real gap that must be addressed, as it does for the entire persecution package, is for McLaren.

It can be a fight, the team director, Fred Vasseur, still understands the fire on the radio and remains a constant voice. Peter Fox/Latin images

While Mercedes and Red Bull will be worried about a half -minute deficit, for Ferrari, McLaren’s margin was almost a complete minute. Vasseur acknowledges that this is a result that cannot be allowed to be lost in any way in the middle of the talk around the equipment’s radio messages.

“I had a discussion with Lewis and I can perfectly understand frustration,” said Vasseur. “They are champions, they want to win races. We ask them to let the team go. It’s not easy. It’s never easy. I don’t see another team to do it today.

“That is why we assume the responsibility of doing so, because it is the policy for the team. We are running for Ferrari first and, honestly, I think that as a team we did a good job.

“Once again, you can argue that you would have a better bone to make it half a turn before or in a half turn later. But when it is on the well wall and should understand if the car behind is faster than the car on the front, if it is only for DRS or not, it is not an easy call.

“It is always much easier to do it two hours later. We asked them to do it, they did it. Now the frustration when you are in the car, I can understand this perfectly. We had an argument and it was much more relaxed.

“[That’s] It is not the story of the day. We did P6-7, instead of P7-6, or P6-7, or P7-6. I would be much more interested in talking about why we finished a minute behind McLaren. “

Vasseur clearly won shy, but that is a much more difficult issue to address than radio communications with drivers, and a very discouraging gap to try to reduce Ferrari’s direction.