Lewis Hamilton was left cursing his luck after the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, revealing that he was left in “no-man’s land” after his Ferrari sustained damage early in the race.
The Brit was unable to match the pace of teammate Charles Leclerc in qualifying, but was buoyant about his chances in the Sunshine State.
However, his plans of climbing into the higher points places were put paid-to by an early brush with Franco Colapinto’s Alpine, having also lost ground by having to take avoiding action from Max Verstappen’s Turn 2 spin.
An irked Hamilton made his feelings clear to the Argentinian, flipping the bird when overtaking him on the back straight towards Turn 17.
After the race, Hamilton explained that he was forced to nurse the SF-26 for the whole race thereafter, ultimately finishing seventh, but promoted to sixth after Leclerc’s 20-second penalty.
“I was really unlucky to get caught up with Max’s spin, and obviously lost positions from there,” he told media, including Motorsport Week.
“And then got damage from Franco, and then that lost me a ton of downforce. And I was just in no-man’s land after that.
“I lost about half a second of downforce on the car, and I was just driving around for nothing really – well, trying to get as many points as I could with the damage.”
Hamilton added that he felt “just a passenger” from then on.
“Honestly I think without the damage, I think we would have been right up in the fight. The car was feeling good, as I said, on the laps the grid,” he rued.
Many might have wondered if this was another race in which Leclerc showed more success in extracting performance from the car, but Hamilton’s explanation shows that mitigating circumstances rendered him powerless to challenge.
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