‘I was frustrated’- Lewis Hamilton on Ferrari’s blunt strategy in Miami GP

Lewis Hamilton had a frustrating weekend in Miami because he was asked to give back his position to his teammate Charles Leclerc after he failed to overtake Antonelli. The seven-time Formula 1 world champion was the first to go for medium tyres during the pit stop.

Leclerc opted for hard tyres, and Kimi Antonelli was flying away from the two Ferraris. As Hamilton had faster tyres, he wanted Leclerc to swap positions with him, so he could attack Antonelli from behind. The Ferrari team made the strategic call too late, and they did swap, but Lewis couldn't push harder as his tyres were already worn.

Then Leclerc called for a driver swap so that he could attack Antonelli. But everything went out of hand, and both the drivers could not get past the 18-year-old Italian driver. They lost a lot of points and time in planning for the overtake, as Leclerc finished in P7 and Hamilton in P8.

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'I lost a lot of time' - Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton is frustrated with Ferrari’s strategy, saying, “Leclerc was struggling in front of me with the compound I had before; I lost a lot of seconds, and obviously I was frustrated. It’s not that I wasn’t happy with the management, but it wasn’t clear what the team wanted to do.”

He added, “I lost a lot of time behind Charles, and in that moment, I was thinking, let’s make a concise decision and not waste 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.”

Ferrari F1 Team principal Fred Vaseur was also not happy with their calls during the Miami Grand Prix. He went straight to convince the seven-time world champion, as Lewis felt he had the pace to overtake Antonelli.

Fred said, “It didn't take so long – it was one lap and a half or something like this. And when you have two cars not with the same strategy, the first thing for me to understand [is] if it's faster when you are behind due to the DRS or not.” The Frenchman added, “And I think we take the tough decision, because it's never easy to ask Charles or Lewis to swap. But we did it, and they did it on track. I didn’t see a lot of teams doing it.”

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