Lewis Hamilton aiming for '13th to GOD KNOWS WHERE' after Miami qualifying nightmare

Lewis Hamilton

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Hamilton aiming for '13th to GOD KNOWS WHERE' after Miami qualifying nightmare

Hamilton partially blamed the timing of his release onto the circuit for his poor performance

Chris Deeley

Saturday 6 May 2023 23:58

Lewis Hamilton appeared to put some of the blame for his failure to reach Q3 in Miami onto his team, saying after the session that Mercedes 'need to be better with our time'.

Hamilton didn't make it through to Q3 in Miami, his worst ever qualifying result in the US by far, while his team-mate George Russell snuck out of Q2 and took advantage of a chaotic final session to place sixth on the grid.

Hamilton admitted that he needed 'perfect' laps to challenge the teams nominally around them this weekend, with the Silver Arrows' well-publicised struggles continuing.

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"It was a difficult session," he said. "We're not that quick, so we really needed perfect laps. It was difficult to get into a rhythm. At the beginning I had that issue with a car going slow in the last corner, but there was a couple of decent moments in there where I thought the car was good.

"Q1, end of the run wasn't too bad. But we were at the back end of the top 10, of course. In that last one, I was the last in the pack and trying to get the temperature into the tyres, but I was at the back of the queue and everyone slowed down to the last corner and I lost all temperature in my tyres and couldn't do the lap."

If you're not first...

"I think it's just that when you're fast, you can sit back, be more relaxed, go at the last minute," he explained. "You can take your time and you know it's likely you're going to make it into Q3, for example.

"We know it's very hard and there's a 50/50 chance we get into Q3, we need to be better with our time. It's done, I'll try and get my head down tomorrow and see what we can do. 13th to...God knows where."

His team-mate Russell also admitted some concerns about their team's pace this weekend, despite just about sneaking into a respectable grid slot.

"I wouldn't say I'm quite pleased," he admitted. "I'll take the result of course, it's a very flattering result for the performance that we've showed. Did a really decent lap in Q2 to just scrape through, and that's not where we should be.

"Everyone's working so hard to bring more performance to the car, it's definitely lot a lack of effort, but it's just not coming to us at the moment. Lots to think about, a few questions that need answering at the moment, but tomorrow's a new day and we'll see what we can do."