(Motorsport-Total.com) – Record world champion Lewis Hamilton finishes the Miami Grand Prix in sixth place. The Ferrari driver completed a largely inconspicuous race in the midfield – a circumstance mainly due to the turbulent opening phase and a consequential collision.
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“I was unlucky that Max Verstappen spun and I had to go past him on the right,” Hamilton reports about his start. “I had a good first corner and was in a good position, and the only option was to go right.”
“That caused me to lose positions, and then it was obviously Franco Colapinto who hit me, which caused me to lose a lot of performance. That cost me a lot of downforce, and after that I was in no man’s land.”
In the duel with the Alpine driver, there was contact, resulting in several parts of the Ferrari SF-26 being damaged. “There is not much to say. I lost about half a second of downforce on the car and just drove around trying to get as many points as possible despite the damage.”
Hamilton would have been “right at the front”
“I believe without the damage we would have been right at the front,” the 41-year-old ventures a confident assessment. “The car felt good when we did the first laps in the starting lineup. It’s a shame because it doesn’t really reflect the hard work of the team.”
It was a “weekend to forget,” admits the Ferrari driver, who finished seventh in both the sprint on Saturday and the main race, but on Sunday still benefited from a subsequent time penalty against teammate Charles Leclerc.
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“In both races just in no man’s land, but especially today with the damage I couldn’t do anything,” Hamilton summarizes. “That’s really a shame because the team worked so hard to get some points. We look ahead and try to achieve more in the next race.”
Ferrari sees progress and has “a good car”
“For Lewis, the race was mainly about minimizing the damage from the first lap,” explains team principal Frederic Vasseur. “That meant coping with missing downforce, overheating, and frequent lifting off and coasting, just to get the car to the finish.”
“But there are also positives to take from the weekend: the starts were good and the upgrades worked as expected,” praises the Frenchman, while Hamilton speaks of a “challenging weekend” but at the same time recognizes progress.
“I believe we have a good car and can take some positive aspects with us. We just have to keep pushing, both in the factory and on the track, to further improve performance and reduce the gap over time.”
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