Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur has attributed Lewis Hamilton‘s fluctuating results with the team to date in Formula 1 to the “narrow” operating window of the tyres in 2025.
Hamilton has endured an inconsistent start with Ferrari as two third places in Sprint races have punctuated less productive outings in his six Grand Prix appearances.
The Briton’s wretched run through last month’s triple-header culminated in him ending up a chastening 30 seconds behind team-mate Charles Leclerc in Saudi Arabia.
That tremendous margin prompted a despondent Hamilton to proclaim that he was poised to experience a “painful” debut campaign with the Maranello-based squad.
However, Hamilton bounced back in Miami as a smart strategic call in mixed conditions propelled him up to an eventual third place in the Sprint behind the McLarens.
And despite later succumbing to a premature Q2 elimination as Leclerc out-qualified him again, the seven-time champion F1 rivalled his team-mate’s pace in the race.
Vasseur, though, denied that Hamilton made a noticeable step forward in Miami, citing instead that his previous woes were down to circumstances rather than speed.
“If you have a look at Bahrain, for example, he was in the pace of Charles all the beginning of the weekend,” Vasseur highlighted to media including Motorsport Week.
“Then he had the track limit [violation], the first lap of Q3, and then he was a bit on the back foot and he didn’t do a good quali and he started from the back [P10].
“If today you put Charles P4, P3 and Lewis P10, you have the same gap as last week. I think it’s really narrow.
“It was true for [Lando] Norris in Bahrain, he made a mistake in Turn 4, he lost four or five tenths in the first sector.
“It’s very difficult and very narrow to interact [with] the tyres.
“McLaren is doing a fantastic job on this all over the weekend, but as soon as you are out, it’s much more difficult.
“I don’t think that Lewis did a completely different job this weekend than last week or two weeks ago. Last race and two races in a row, at least in Bahrain, the pace was good.”
Hamilton revels in ‘better weekend’ in Miami
But Hamilton, who has insisted that Ferrari is more competitive than it has shown this season, indicated that he did make progress understanding the SF-25 in Miami.
“I think this weekend, whilst we’re not as quick as we want to be, I feel like I had a better weekend in general.
“The result might not show necessarily today, but I was [starting] 12th, so very hard to overtake here, the cars were obviously so close.
“I got into the Medium tyre and I felt the car really come alive and I felt super optimistic in that moment.”
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