Lewis Hamilton
felt let down by Ferrari’s tactics when he found himself trapped behind his teammate
Charles Leclerc
For crucial parts of the Miami Grand Prix.
Beginning at position 12, Hamilton progressed through the pack to end up trailing Leclerc who was on newer and faster medium tires.
However, the seven-time world champion quickly grew impatient as they awaited instructions from their team.
radio
To surpass his teammate and advance higher on the leader board.
“I’m simply using up my tires spinning around behind him,” a clearly irritated Hamilton stated via the team radio.
‘Are you asking me to stay seated for the entire race? That’s not proper team play; I’ll just leave it at that,’ he commented after being instructed to wait longer as a decision awaited.
Once he was finally permitted to overtake Leclerc and chase after Kimi Antonelli, Hamilton expressed his frustration with the delay, sarcastically remarking: “Why not take a tea break while you’re at it?”
Further along in the race, Hamilton was instructed to revert to his original position; however, with Williams’ Carlos Sainz merely two seconds behind, Hamilton felt agitated once more. ‘Should I also allow him (Sainz) to go ahead?’ he questioned.
Following the race, Hamilton tried to ease tensions but acknowledged that his team has significant room for enhancement after yet another underwhelming performance.
‘After I passed Haas and switched to the medium tire, I felt quite hopeful. The car started performing much better, and I genuinely thought I could close the gap with those ahead,’ he explained.
‘I wasted a significant amount of time following Charles Leclerc, and at that point, I decided to make a quick choice rather than lose more time.’
‘I’m sure people didn’t like certain topics but you’ve got to understand it’s frustrating, people say way worse things than I say, it was more sarcastic than anything. I’m not frustrated now but we will work internally and we keep pushing.’
Asked about the teams stategy, particularly after a similar debacle had occured between him and Leclerc in China, Hamilton responded: ‘The way my mind works for example in China where I was clearly holding another car up and I personally don’t want to lose that place but if it means the team can get further ahead, I want that for the team.
‘That is why I decided to let Charles past in China for example. Today, I was on a different strategy and a much quicker tyre at the time. Charles was clearly struggling a bit then and it took a long time for everyone to see it but by then it’s too late.’
Leclerc, meanwhile, sought to keep his feelings closer to his chest, telling Sky Sports: ‘It’s a difficult situation, I think I will unfortunately go for the boring answer and I’m not going to comment too much here.
‘It’s clear that today’s approach isn’t how we should handle a race. We’ll have internal discussions to improve our decision-making.’
‘There are absolutely no hard feelings towards Lewis [Hamilton], not at all. However, as a team, we need to improve, and today clearly demonstrated this necessity. Regarding the rest, I prefer not to delve deeper into the specifics.’
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