Lewis Hamilton battled his way to a P6 finish at the 2023 Miami GP after a difficult qualifying session saw the Briton line up only 13th for Sunday’s race. The seven-time champion explained the “mega” feeling of making progress and getting ahead of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari on merit in the closing stages of the race.
Photo Credit: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team
Hamilton had a mixed weekend at Miami, as he and team-mate George Russell showed promising pace in the first practice session but couldn’t sustain that going into qualifying on Saturday, with the seven-time champion being a surprise elimination in Q2, just under a quarter of a second slower than his team-mate who got through in P10.
But things went much better for Hamilton in the race. The Briton started the race on the hard tyres and managed his rubber to make his one and only stop on lap 38, getting a new set of medium tyres and a huge offset compared to the cars ahead, who were mostly doing a conventional medium-hard one-stop and were on older tyres.
Speaking to media after the race, Hamilton said he “enjoyed” fighting other cars and making progress in the race, even getting ahead of cars that qualified a long way ahead – including Pierre Gasly’s Alpine and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari:
“It’s been a good day, much better than yesterday [in qualifying]. Yesterday was a difficult day, to be qualified [in] 13th is not great, [and] obviously made the race much, much harder for us.
“The first 20 laps were a little bit difficult because we were in a DRS train,” he said. “But after that I was able to then start chipping away, and I really enjoyed battling with all the different cars – it was great at the end to catch the Alpine and overtake a Ferrari for example.”
During the first stint, George Russell had already made his pit stop and closed down on Hamilton on fresher tyres at the time. Mercedes asked the seven-time champion to “not hold each other up” to which he replied that Russell “can go by, but I’m not backing off though”. This proved to a momentary tension only, as a few laps later he let Russell through.
When asked about this, Hamilton said he acknowledged that Russell was in a “different race” and let him through:
“George [Russell] and I – he started sixth – so were in a bit of a different race, and of course I’m a team player, I want to get the team the maximum points, so I let him by.”
The Briton explained how he relished being in a position to chase down the cars ahead and have a fighting chance, unlike in Baku where he was mostly going backwards – especially in the Sprint race:
“It’s mega, it’s mega yeah,” he said of the feeling of being able to catch and pass cars on his final stint. “Just to be in that position, you know – there was the Sprint race in the last race for example, where I was just going backwards, and it’s like really demoralising when you’re going backwards, it’s really tough.
“It was great to have pace, to be seeing the cars up ahead and seeing the progress, knowing that we were going to be battling with people. I had a couple of great overtakes as well, so that’s what I live for.”
The 38-year-old said he relished the opportunity to race a much faster – over one lap, at least – Ferrari and make his way through the field after the “adversity” of qualifying:
“Honestly it felt great, just to see the Ferrari up ahead and to be just catching it bit by bit,” he said. “It’s really impressive that they’re so quick on a single lap, but I don’t know what was going on within their race. But to come from 13th and then get back in the hustle with them was great.
“I think if we qualified where we should’ve qualified, I would have had a much easier, smoother day, but I prefer days like this, where there’s a bit of adversity and you have to pull it all together and deliver.”
