It was another miserable day for Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes on Friday as both drivers qualified outside the top 10 for the Miami Grand Prix sprint race. George Russell will start 11th, with Hamilton 12th.
The Silver Arrows’ performance is even more disappointing when you consider that they’d brought upgrades to the car for this weekend. They were looking to rectify their longest run without a podium at the start of a season since 2011.
Hamilton said he was ‘excited’ to see how the updated W15 would fare in Miami. But any optimism in the Brackley outfit’s ranks has already been dashed.
Russell had reached the top 10 in the first four qualifying sessions of the season, but he’s now suffered back-to-back SQ2 exits. He was also 11th for the sprint in Shanghai last time out before recovering to eighth to take a point.
Hamilton, meanwhile, dropped exactly 10 places from the corresponding session in China, where he produced a ‘magical’ lap in the wet to take second. But this is the third time at the last four events that he’s failed to reach a top-10 shoot-out.
Across both the Friday and Saturday instalments, Russell now leads the qualifying head-to-head 5-2. He continues to have the edge over the seven-time world champion ahead of the latter’s move to Ferrari.
Martin Brundle stunned by Lewis Hamilton replay
Hamilton couldn’t improve on his final lap in SQ2, which meant he remained 12th and in the drop zone. He informed the team that he’d hit the wall heading onto the back straight, but it was a relatively light bump.
Perhaps the bigger problem was the preceding sequence, where Martin Brundle says he had to ‘fight the car hard’. The Sky Sports F1 pundit couldn’t believe what he was seeing from a driver who was so at one with his machinery during Mercedes’ era of dominance.
Speaking during Sky’s coverage, he said: “Blimey, he made more mistakes in that little sector than he used to in a season. He was really fighting the car hard all the way through corners that are just 60 mph.”
Speaking over the radio, Hamilton told his team he had ‘nothing’ in the tank. He may feel as if he’s extracting everything he can from his recalcitrant car right now.
Lewis Hamilton hopes for Adrian Newey link-up at Ferrari
With every setback at Mercedes, Hamilton may be counting down the days until he joins Ferrari. The Scuderia had a decent day, with Charles Leclerc splitting the Red Bulls in second and Carlos Sainz fifth.
Hamilton’s excitement will no doubt have gone up a notch amid talk that the team will sign Adrian Newey. The legendary designer is leaving Red Bull next year, likely between the middle and the end of February.
While he wouldn’t be able to have an impact on the Englishman’s first Ferrari next year, he would still arrive in time to have significant input on their 2026 concept. And given the scale of the regulation changes, that could offer Hamilton a shot at an elusive eighth world title.
Newey reportedly met with Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur before flying out to Miami. And they ‘seem to have convinced him’ with the offer of a ‘super consultant’ role at Maranello.
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