In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton says he is pained by his lack of success in his final season at Mercedes so far.
In brief
Lack of success “painful” for Hamilton
Hamilton, who will join Ferrari next year, said “the most painful part” of his coming departure from Mercedes to join Ferrari is the lack of result the team has had so far. He is yet to finish a grand prix in the top five so far.
“I think everyone in the team, they want it to be a great year,” he told CBS. “Everyone’s worked so hard back at the factory, no less than ever before.
“For me, this whole journey has been massively emotional just because I have so much love for this team. I’m not leaving because I’m unhappy there. I’m not leaving because of relationship issues. Mercedes supported me since I was 13 so I love the brand. I love the people. They’ve been with me through thick and thin. So it’s definitely a strange transition at the moment.”
Hamilton hasn’t won a race since the penultimate round of 2021. “It’s been tough,” he admitted. “Of course we exist to win and when you’re not winning, your perspective has to shift. And it’s just been about chasing and it’s about improvement. It’s about coming together. How can we make improvements? How can we get back to where we want to be and rallying and everyone out?
“I actually really enjoyed that experience. But three years in now, we’re like, okay, I’ve had enough of this, let’s get back to where we belong.”
Russell’s car “didn’t feel right”
George Russell said something didn’t feel right in his Mercedes during Sunday’s race.
“It was a pretty rubbish race from start to finish in all honesty,” he told the official F1 channel. “I made a good start, but I think it was Checo who sent it down the inside when he rejoined everybody had to check up a bit and it cost me three positions. And then just had no pace at all thereon in. I need to check the car, check the data because something didn’t feel quite right.”
The Miami Grand Prix weekend “definitely felt like a more difficult weekend than all of the others,” said Russell. “But the results have all really been relatively similar.
“We are between P5 on a good day and P8 on a bad day. And today was a bad day, we finished P8. Lewis had a had a good day, drove really well and finished P6. And that’s kind of where we are.”
‘You shouldn’t really defend in Miami’ – Albon
Alexander Albon says defending position is almost impossible at Miami’s F1 circuit because of the lack of grip away from the racing line.
“It’s so dirty off-line here, you’re defending but you shouldn’t really be defending because it’s putting dirt on your tyres and then when you brake, you lock up,” he told the official F1 channel. “So it’s one of those ones where you didn’t really want to defend but you had to keep position.”
Albon was the first driver to pit in Sunday’s race which left him vulnerable to attack from those who took fresh tyres later on, and eventually had to make an extra pit stop at the end.
“We didn’t have that bad pace,” he said. “It’s just that the cars behind us were all on new tyres. So I was the backstop for everyone else, and you can’t really hold off the guys when they’re on 25, 30-lap newer tyres than you. I think if we weren’t that last car and we were a position or two ahead, and there was someone else being the buffer, we would have been okay.”
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