Hamilton is urging Ferrari to find performance [Pic: @tinnekephotography]
Lewis Hamilton’s first appearance for the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team in front of an Italian crowd was always going to be special, and which makes a below par performance for the home outfit at Imola even more painful.
Hamilton could manage only 12th in Q2, and it was of little comfort that his team mate Charles Leclerc was only one place and just 0.161s ahead.
The double frustration for Hamilton was that for once he felt comfortable in the car – the speed just simply wasn’t there.
After qualifying he called for more updates for the SF-25, while also stressing that for him that this is a “foundation building” year ahead of 2026.
“I definitely feel devastated, I feel just gutted I guess, because the car was generally feeling really good,” he said.
“I honestly felt like the setup was just right, the brakes were working, everything was kind of in place, and we just can’t go quicker.
“If you look how quick Max is going through Turn 2 and 3, we just can’t match it. And when we put that new soft on at the end, for some reason, it just didn’t come alive. There was no extra grip.”
He added: “I just I really thought we were going to be getting through. I thought the car’s alive, and watching these guys doing 14.7s. We could just get to 15.7, it’s a lot of time missing.”
Lewis insisted that the car felt better to drive after his recent struggles, even if the pace was missing.
“I think we made progress this weekend with the bit that I was talking about before,” he said.
“It’s still not where it needs to be. And there’s performance in that. And we need more upgrades for sure. We’ve got to start adding performance to this car.
“Clearly, we’re not at the level. I mean, look at Max’s rear, it just doesn’t move. He’s doing, like, I don’t know, like 6-10kph faster through Turn 2 than us, and we can’t match that. Same with the McLarens.
“So we just got to keep pushing, keep applying pressure. I believe that the guys can find some performance.”
However time is running out as every team turns its full R&D focus towards 2026 – and Hamilton himself is also eyeing next season.
“I think this is at least from my side, this is a foundation building year,” he said. “And getting to grips with everything within the team, making changes that are needed in order to help the team navigate to success long term.
“That’s stuff that I’m focused on. In the background, there’s a lot of improvements we can make across the board, as well as a faster car. I have all the faith and beliefs we can do that.”
In the meantime he has a race to do at Imola on Sunday. Ferrari has better long run pace than qualifying performance, but actually using it and passing people won’t be easy.
“This is not a great race circuit to great circuit to race on,” Lewis said when I asked about race form. “It’s great to drive a single lap, but overtaking, you get stuck in a DRS train, and there’s not going to be a lot of movement tomorrow.
“But we are all on softer tyres, and see what we can do strategy-wise. We’ll try and pick them off if we can. I feel like race pace could be good.”
The news that Carlos Sainz Sr is contemplating a run for the FIA presidency has created quite a stir, mainly because the 63-year-old is such an obvious potential candidate.
Universally respected, he brings with him the knowledge and experience gained not just during his own sporting career, but also from nurturing and guiding that of his son Carlos Jr.
At the moment it remains just an idea, and the former World Champion is clearly gauging the interest. However it would be naïve to think that he hasn’t already attracted useful support from around the world of motor sport, and potentially from senior FIA folk.
What matters of course is getting support from within the wider body of the FIA and the voting members, and it remains to be seen how that develops in the coming months, given that Mohammed Ben Sulayem scored such a convincing victory back in 2021.
Sainz will also have to come up with a full team, including deputy presidents for sport and mobility, and a head of senate.
The bottom line is that a challenge to the incumbent is a healthy thing and a good test of the democratic process in any field – may the best candidate win, and so on.
On Thursday in Imola Carlos Sainz Jr gave an intriguing insight into his father’s mindset, while stressing that the inspiration for him to stand came from elsewhere.
“Obviously we’ve been talking about it for a while now,” he said. “Interestingly enough, I think it’s something that didn’t actually come from him.
“A lot of people in the paddock were kind of putting it in his head, and little-by-little, he started considering it, and now he’s obviously thinking about it.
“I think the key is that he’s still hasn’t put together a team. But he’s considering it, and depending obviously how he sees it and sees his fit, he will go for it or not.”
So is he the right man for the job? Carlos Jr cites his dad’s vast experience of all forms motor sport.
“I’m his son, so I’m biased!,” he said. “But I just honestly speaking from the most objective position possible, it doesn’t come to my head anyone that has lived through all the karting days with his son, and knows the roots of motor sport in go-karting, as he did four or five years of go-karting with me.
“He did four or five years of single-seaters with me, knowing how tough, expensive, difficult is that ladder. He’s done 10 years in F1 with me. He’s done 40 years of rallying, raids. He does a lot of mobility work in Spain.
“So a guy that covers so many experiences in so many different areas of motor sport, coming to the end of his career, obviously, in racing, and trying to find a way to give back to motorsports what motorsports has given to him.
“From the most objective position that I can find, obviously being his son and obviously a very optimal candidate. Whether he will decide to do it or not is obviously completely up to him.
“But interestingly enough, as I said, it didn’t actually come from him, it came from a lot of people in the paddock putting it on his ear. And he started, maybe? It’s actually not so much from him, but people coming to him and suggesting it.”
So how likely is the bid to come to fruition?
“I can just tell you that he’s considering it seriously,” says Carlos. “Like he said, he’s evaluating all the options, obviously, now starting to think what team, what people, individuals, he would like to have in his team. He’s trying to understand how the elections work, how much convincing, how many people he needs to obviously go and talk to.
“But he’s evaluating the whole thing, and trying to understand how everything works. It’s his thing now. I’m obviously very busy here with Williams, doing my own thing, so I’m leaving it to him, in a way, and he gives me an update of the situation every one or two weeks, how much progress he’s doing, or what’s the situation. And he obviously wants my opinion, but not more than that.”
It’s not an easy job, and inevitably you can’t please everybody. Does Sr have a thick enough skin to cope with the challenges and criticism he’ll face?
“He seems more up for it in a way, where he has a thick enough skin to deal with it,” says Sainz Jr.
“My mum, maybe not so much! She’s like, come on, now that you are about to retire, give yourself a break, or do something not so demanding as this. But my dad is just non-stop.
“He loves motor sport, he loves racing, and he sees there an opportunity to put an end to his racing career, but still do something further, still actively, and find ways to give back to motorsport, and give back to the FIA, an entity that he has a lot of respect for, for all his years.
“And he knows what the FIA has done over the last 20-30 years, to improve safety in motorsport, to improve everyone’s life here in in motorsports. So he feels like he could give back, and that motivates him.”
Inevitably people will question how a serving FIA president could have a son racing in the organisation’s flagship championship.
However it’s inevitable that any credible candidate with relevant experience will have connections of some sort with teams, manufacturers and drivers.
When Jean Todt was president his son Nicolas was an active driver manager and team co-owner, and that wasn’t seen as a conflict. Carlos Jr is confident that it won’t be an issue.
“I’ve been trying to think scenarios where it could, but I actually don’t see any way how that could be seen,” he says. “If anything, obviously, he will be extremely careful. I will be extremely careful, because the last thing that I want is my or his image or career to be damaged by that situation.
“So if anything, we would do the opposite effect, and I don’t see any conflict of interest the moment you personally know my dad or you personally know me. We are honest people that would never, ever compromise that situation in motorsport.”
His team mate Oscar Piastri has usually had the advantage of late, but Lando Norris is trying to change that
With Oscar Piastri having won four of the first six races of the season and established a lead in the World Championship his McLaren Formula 1 team mate Lando Norris has to strike back as soon as he can if he is to retain his title hopes.
We are already 25% into the season, and with a busy European triple header beginning in Imola – a track where the Briton has a solid record of doing well – a lot of points are up for grabs over the next three weekends.
Piastri clearly has momentum on his side, and a good run over this sequences of races will be a further boost.
Norris has made it clear in recent months that he’s not felt fully comfortable with this year’s MCL39, and is not getting the feedback he needs to feel the limit of the grip available.
He’s been working away with the team in an attempt to improve the situation, and Imola will be another test of whether or not he is finding the answers.
“I go to the factory every week, so it’s a constant thing,” he said on Thursday when I asked if he had made progress on that front since Miami. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, there’s new issues, let’s dig into them.’
“We’re always trying to improve things. I’m trying to improve my own things, whether that’s the track or away from it. And the team are doing a great good job to try and help me understand things and figure out things and give me the things that I need to get more out of the car.
“So now there’s been a lot of a lot of work behind the scenes, as there always is. But more than more than ever, I would say, which is a positive thing.”
It’s easy to be sceptical when F1 drivers talk about a car not suiting their style, especially when their team mate seems to be perfectly attuned to the same machine.
However we’re talking about fine margins when these guys are operating at the absolute limit, especially when poles and race wins are at stake.
“Every driver has different ways of driving cars,” said Norris. “In the end of the day, I have no excuses, because I also feel like it’s my job to drive whatever car I get driven.
“So I’m not going to have excuses, but I’m going to have reasons at times, but in the end of the day, I just want to drive the best I can. So I might have days I struggle. I might have days I perform better.
“But no driver is ever satisfied. I’m still trying to improve myself, but we’re still trying to improve the car even though we’re winning races, we’re second in races, we’re dominating races, we still come away at times not happy and expecting more and wanting more.
“So yeah, this is one of the things that’s made my life trickier this year than it was last season, and it’s not allowing me to get my full potential. But I need more from the car, and I also know that I need to – at times – do a better job too.”
The challenge Norris faces is obviously firstly to fully understand what’s not working for him, and secondly to find solutions. It’s not easy to turn things around.
“I don’t always have to have reasons straight away,” he noted. “Sometimes it takes time, just like some of the difficulties I’ve had with the car this year, I know that some of the things that we’re trying to work on to improve my feeling takes time, and I have to be patient with certain things, and I have to be patient with my own improvements at times.
“You always want to go into the next weekend and things to be perfect. But it’s not always the case. You look at any other sports, no team just goes from one day to the next day and becomes a loser and then a winner.
“Sometimes it takes two or three races, whether it’s a football team or tennis player, a golfer, you never see them going from a shocking weekend to just dominating all of a sudden, especially when you’re at the top.
“Sometimes it takes weeks, months, different amount of races. So I don’t always need to have the reasons, but it’s always better to find them out so you can work on them.”
On the plus side Norris knows he has a car that can win races when everything falls into place.
Why the MCL39 is so good at managing its tyres is the question that is vexing the opposition.
“A lot of people talk about the tyres a lot, all the time, but it’s not just the tyres,” he said. “There’s a lot of different things that we do well, including just the balance and how the car performs. So all we have to do is keep focusing on our own job.
“We’ve not really had any upgrades or many big improvements when other teams have. So we’re taking our time with stuff, and making sure we do it our way. And I’m happy with that.”
He was a star in qualifying in Miami but the GP itself was a struggle for Antonelli
Kimi Antonelli is the gift that keeps on giving, and every race seems to have a story attached to it as his Formula 1 rookie season with Mercedes continues to unfold.
As I’ve said before he’s brutally honest about any mistakes or any perceived underachievement, which is very refreshing, and helps to give context to his progress.
The Miami weekend saw two extremes for the Italian. This was a track he knew only from the Brackley sim, and yet after just a single FP1 session he outpaced team mate George Russell in sprint qualifying to become F1’s youngest ever pole winner.
Given how hard it is for everyone to get tyre preparation bang on these days, it was no small feat.
In the sprint itself he showed he still has a lot of learning to do when he ran wide on the wet first lap and dropped to fourth.
His race was then ruined when he pitted for slicks and Max Verstappen was released into his path. His quick reaction, carrying on through the pits rather than attempting to stop and potentially putting crew members at risk, showed what an instinctive racer he is.
In the main qualifying session later that afternoon he again outpaced Russell to secure third.
On the first lap of the Grand Prix he got ahead of Lando Norris to claim second. Inevitably he was passed by both McLaren drivers, and then he found himself with Russell – who started on the theoretically slower hard tyre – right behind him, and keen to get by.
Following his stop ultimately Antonelli slipped back after struggling on the hards, with both Russell and Alex Albon getting ahead.
Second on the first lap to sixth at the flag was not really the sort of progression he wanted.
“I need to check,” he said when I asked if there were lessons to be learned. “The race pace today was just not good, especially on the hard, I really struggled to make the tyre work during the stint, and I was just sliding a lot around and couldn’t really find lap time. So definitely need to analyse what went wrong in order to be better for Imola.”
Was it the most difficult situation he’d faced to date in terms of tyre management?
“I think it was quite unique, this race, because it was the first time that I really struggled to make the tyre work. But still, a lot to take away into the next weekend.”
Nevertheless from the outside at least it looked like a weekend of decent progress, although his focus was on what he didn’t optimise.
“I think in some ways, yes, in others not really,” he said. “But I think in terms of qualifying pace, it was a strong weekend, and definitely looking forward to the next one.
“I think it’s a lot about experience and getting confidence with the car and being able to push it more and more.
“And I think I felt pretty good from FP1 on that side. And so it was nice. It was a nice feeling also being able to put the lap more together. So yeah, that was really positive.”
For Mercedes boss Toto Wolff it was definitely a weekend of two halves, but he chose to see the glass half full.
“I think the high point definitely is seeing his speed on a single lap,” said the Austrian. “Great. That’s another proof of his talent, and a good indication to how the future can be.
“And then in the race, challenging, because it’s so difficult here to find the right reference. You can say was the medium stint quick enough, with George holding on in the back on the hard tyre? That was not good.
“And then when he went into the hard, he just lacks experience managing it the right way. And then finding the right references. And Bono really tried to guide him, but when you’re in that car, it’s not easy, and I think it’s just part of the learning curve.
“There’s nothing that is disappointing or not. Overall I go away with the feeling that he’s done a good job.”
To be fair to Antonelli Russell may have finished ahead, but he too struggled with tyre management, and not for the first time in 2025.
“We have a really fast car, I believe, on a single lap or on a few laps, absolutely where it can be,” said Wolff. “But we’re just not good on with the tyres over an extended run. And McLaren shows how it’s being done to a degree. I think that Red Bull with Max, they’re managing it better, also tricky performances and I would say we’re solid in what we’re doing.
“But they are definitely doing an excellent job by being able to go fast around the corners without overheating them. So this is what we need to look up to, and engineer our way out of that of the topic.”
Antonelli has faced a few unfamiliar tracks in recent weeks, and now he heads to three in a row that he knows from last year’s F2 campaign.
He’s also sampled both Imola and Barcelona in F1 TPC running with an older car, and that gives him a head start.
“Definitely,” he said. “I mean, first of all, Imola is a track that I’ve driven in all the categories. And Barcelona as well. So I know the track well this time. So definitely it can help for the weekend. But it’s not that because I know it that it’s going to be easy. It’s going to be important to be on top of the game.”
What we don’t know yet is what sort of reception he’ll get in front of his home crowd. Over the years Italy has had race winners in Riccardo Patrese, Michele Alboreto, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli. However the received wisdom is that Antonelli is the one, the guy who can eventually be his country’s first World Champion since 1953.
“Well, for sure, first home race, and definitely it’s going to be a special one,” he says. “So I’m going try to make the best out of it as well.
“It’s going to feel weird that I’m going to be sleeping at home. And apparently it’s also the last year for Imola. So I really want to make the best out of it, because it’s going to be special.
“I always try to for myself to keep expectations low. Of course I go on track and try to do my best. Qualifying was really special this weekend, and it would be good to repeat myself in Imola as well.”
Hamilton created a stir with radio comments in the Miami GP
Lewis Hamilton’s radio frustration with his Ferrari Formula 1 team inevitably became the big story of the Miami GP.
Afterwards the former World Champion was keen to play down his comments – while stressing that they showed that he still has that desire to win.
The situation arose because he started on the hard tyres and switched to mediums. Finding that the car came alive and suited him better he came up behind Charles Leclerc, who had done the opposite strategy.
The heated discussion followed as Lewis felt that he had the pace with which to chase the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli up ahead, and he thus wanted to get cleanly past Leclerc and make best use of his tyres.
His frustration came as it took a couple of laps for the decision to be made to let him through.
When he failed to make much progress – perhaps because his tyres had lost some of the initial advantage that he might have had – the positions were reversed.
In these cases that tension is usually still in the air after the flag when drivers meet the media.
Crucially in this instance Lewis had met with team boss Fred Vasseur before the came to face the media, and they’d had a chance to put their points across.
Subsequently rather than clam up Lewis was keen to explain his point of view. He was almost sheepish in the way he downplayed his comments, perhaps aware that the stable door was being closed too late to stop the storm that they had already created.
“I generally enjoyed the race,” he said when I asked him about his afternoon. “I think this weekend, whilst we were not as quick as we want to be, I think I feel like I had a better weekend in general.
“The result might not show necessarily today, but I was 12th, so very hard to overtake here. Cars were obviously so close.
“I got onto the medium tyre, and I felt the car really come alive. And I felt super optimistic in that moment, and I all I could see is the [Mercedes] up ahead, and I was thinking, maybe we can get up to sixth or something.
“But we lost a lot of time in those laps, and I was clearly quicker in that moment. And I didn’t think the decision came quick enough, and then for sure in that time, you’re like, ‘Come on!’
“That’s really kind of it. I have no problems with the team, or with Charles. I think we could do it better, but the car is where we really need to improve. We’re ultimately battling for seventh and eighth.”
The frustration came really because Hamilton initially felt so good on the medium tyre, and couldn’t use the pace he felt he had when behind Leclerc.
“I lost quite a bit of the tyres in that, which is okay,” he said. “We’re battling for position at the end of the day, but it would have been great if we could have maybe done what Valtteri and I did back in the past, years ago, or just move, see if I can catch him.
“If I can’t, then move back. But ultimately, it didn’t work out. Whether or not we could have overtaken a Mercedes, and at the end of the day, we were not quick enough.
“That’s probably where the frustration came from. We will keep our heads up. We’ll keep pushing.”
As noted Hamilton met Vasseur before he talked to the media, and both men had a chance to explain their positions.
It’s clear that, while understanding the frustration of any racing driver in such a situation, the team boss wasn’t happy with the tone of some of the radio traffic. In effect it was aimed at him, given that ultimately it was his call to make.
“Fred came to my room,” said Hamilton. “I just put my hand on his shoulder, like, dude, calm down! It’s not good to be so sensitive. I could have said way worse things on the radio. You hear some of the things other people have said in the past!
“Some of it was sarcasm. You’ve got to understand, we’re under a huge amount of pressure within the cars. You’re never going to get the most peaceful messages come through in the heat of battle.”
He added: “It was ‘Make a decision. Let’s go.’ It was kind of like, ‘We’ll get back to you.’ I definitely said that to Shov or Bono once before.”
Hamilton also made the point that at least he didn’t resort to swearing.
“It wasn’t even anger,” he said. “It wasn’t even effing and blinding or anything like that. It was just like, come on make a decision, you’re sitting there on the chair, you’ve the stuff in front of you, make the decision quick.
“That’s how I was, whereas me, I’m like, we’re in a panic. We’re trying to keep the car on the track. The computer thinks fast.
“It was all PG at least, right? I don’t know what you’re going to write, whether I was disrespectful or whatever. I honestly, I don’t feel I was. I was just like, come on guys. I want to win.”
And that’s the bottom line – Hamilton is the ultimate racer, and he simply wanted to get on with it.
“Still got that fire in my belly,” he said. “I could feel a little bit of it like really coming up there. And I’m not going to apologise for being a fighter.
“I’m not going to apologise for still wanting it. I know everyone in the team does too, and I truly believe that when we fix some of the problems that we have with the car, we’ll be back in the fight with the Mercedes, with the Bulls, and it just can’t come quick enough.
“We’ll try something different in the next race. We’ll keep working on our processes. Look forward to the time where maybe I can fight for a podium. That’ll be nice.”
The fact that Hamilton felt good on the medium tyre in the latter part of the race was another sign of light at the end of the tunnel, following a similarly strong middle stint in the Bahrain GP.
The trick is to find the sweet spot, and get that feeling on a regular basis.
“I had a good day in general. Eighth doesn’t really look like that. I feel optimistic for the future. I think this car really does have performance.
“But something is holding us back at the moment, and we’ve lost performance since China. And it’s there. It’s just we can’t use it until we get a fix for that. This is where we are.
“In the meantime, we can work on all the other stuff, the processes. But as I said, I came from the sim last week, I felt like I generally had a better weekend to get the third yesterday was positive, had a better qualifying, I only missed out by half a tenth.
“Still for us, we’re battling with the Williams here, so we’re clearly not as quick as we ought to be. Williams did a great job this weekend.”
Alpine says that Colapinto’s progress will be reviewed before Silverstone
The Alpine Formula 1 team has taken some of the heat out of the driver situation by framing the switch from Jack Doohan to Franco Colapinto as a “rotation,” with the Argentine driver guaranteed five races before a review prior to the British GP.
The team stresses that Doohan is the number one reserve – leaving Paul Aron in the lurch – and that he’s still part of the team.
How that unfolds remains to be seen, and one assumes Colapinto will have to really screw up to not still be in the car at Silverstone, especially given the commercial package that he brings.
He has the advantage of knowing Imola, Barcelona, Monaco and Austria from F2, although Montreal will be new to him. He’s been kept sharp with testing in a 2023 car and sim running, and also has the experience of his nine Williams races last year, whereas Doohan came into the season with just one F1 start behind him, and had more unfamiliar tracks to learn.
It will be fascinating to see if Colapinto can rebuild the momentum he had late last year, before a messy Las Vegas weekend derailed him somewhat.
He certainly deserves another chance to prove that he really has what it takes to be a future superstar, although it’s a pity that it’s happened at the expense of Doohan.
Rarely has a new driver been so undermined elements within his own team, with the signing of Colapinto and the arrival of his sponsorship clearly pointing to a race seat sooner rather than later.
Doohan was under intense pressure even before the first test of this season, and it was inevitable that mistakes would follow as he tried to impress.
The contrast with the red carpet rolled out for Kimi Antonelli, who has felt nothing but support and love from all sides at Mercedes and has been given time to get onto the pace of his team mate, could not be greater. And while Liam Lawson faced a difficult time at RBR he had the soft landing of a return to VCARB.
Pretty much everything that could go wrong for Doohan did go wrong, with him losing qualifying runs to yellow flags or (as in the Miami sprint) to a chequered flag.
There were flashes of inspiration, such as P5 in Q1 in Bahrain, and beating Pierre Gasly in main qualifying last weekend. Alas the Miami GP first corner tangle with Lawson – who was responsible for a previous clash between the pair in China – came at the worst possible time.
In justifying the change Alpine quotes Flavio Briatore as saying: “Having reviewed the opening races of the season, we have come to the decision to put Franco in the car alongside Pierre for the next five races. With the field being so closely matched this year, and with a competitive car, which the team has drastically improved in the past 12 months, we are in a position where we see the need to rotate our line-up.
”We also know the 2026 season will be an important one for the team and having a complete and fair assessment of the drivers this season is the right thing to do in order to maximise our ambitions next year.
”We continue to support Jack at the team, as he has acted in a very professional manner in his role as a race driver so far this season. The next five races will give us an opportunity to try something different and after this time period we will assess our options.”
Doohan says: “I am very proud to have achieved my lifelong ambition to be a professional F1 driver and I will forever be grateful to the team for helping me achieve this dream.
“Obviously, this latest chapter is a tough one for me to take because, as a professional driver, naturally I want to be racing. That said, I appreciate the team’s trust and commitment.
“We have long-term goals as a team to achieve and I will continue to give my maximum efforts in any way I can to help achieve those. For now, I will keep my head down, keep working hard, watch with interest the next five races and keep chasing my own personal goals.”
Piastri starts only fourth in Miami – and blames himself for not getting it right
Oscar Piastri has had a brilliant run in recent weeks, but the McLaren F1 ace’s luck ran out in the sprint on Saturday in Miami when the safety car timing tipped the balance in favour of Lando Norris.
A couple of hours later he ended the main qualifying fourth, having lost out to Max Verstappen, Norris and Kimi Antonelli.
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Afterwards he was brutally honest about the mistakes he’d made in Q3 in the sort of manner that we’ve come accustomed to with his team mate.
“This afternoon was nothing to do with luck,” he said when I asked about the outcome.
“It was just not the level of execution I needed to have in Q3. It’s never a great qualifying session when your best lap is the first lap of Q2. There was quite a bit left on the table, a few mistakes on both laps in Q3 which is a shame.
“Both laps of Q3 I struggled at Turn 1. I think I lost pretty much two-tenths in Turn 1, and then my first lap of Q3 I kind of gained it back a bit through the rest of sector one, and then fell away in the middle.
“The last one I eventually recovered some of it at the end, but it wasn’t enough. So this was nothing to do with preparation. It was just execution of the driving, unfortunately.”
Piastri had no doubts about his potential speed had he got it just right.
“I’m not concerned about the pace I had today,” he said. “It was just that, unfortunately, I didn’t use it when I really needed it. And, yeah, I think after the lap in Q2 I just never quite got back into the same rhythm.
“And that was kind of the difference at the end. So some things to look at, for sure, but I know exactly where it went wrong, which is frustrating. But better than asking some questions.”
At the start of the season many people thought McLaren would be dominant and run away with everything, but it’s not been quite like that, especially over one lap.
Verstappen has had a great run of poles for Red Bull, while Ferrari and Mercedes have taken the top spots in the two sprint events.
In other words McLaren has to enjoy a perfect qualifying session in order to be on top.
“There’s definitely still some things with our car that we want to try and address, and driving it right on the limit is one of them,” said Piastri.
“I think this weekend it has had enough pace to be on pole. It’s just that I’ve not done as good a job as I should have, unfortunately.
“I think it’s always been tight. The gap has always been closed, and potentially our advantage has been a little bit more on Sundays. But I think our picture of where we stand has always been that if we make mistakes, where we’re going to be beaten. And that’s been true through the year.”
It remains to be seen if things will turn around in the Miami race.
“It’s hard to say, honestly, the tires have behaved a bit better than most people have expected, I would say, compared to last year. If it’s hot, that might help us out a little bit, but qualifying is still going to make a massive difference for tomorrow.
“So it’s not going to be easy to make progress, but I’m confident in the car that we’ve got.”
Leclerc crashed before the sprint and could only qualify P8 for the main event
Saturday in Miami turned into a nightmare for Charles Leclerc, with a reconnaissance lap crash robbing him of the chance to start the sprint event.
Even worse for the Ferrari driver after the car was repaired he had a relatively straightforward qualifying session with clean laps that resulted in a humble P8, benchmarking the pace of the SF-25 this weekend.
Meanwhile team mate Lewis Hamilton just missed the Q3 cut, and will start in 12th.
The double frustration for Ferrari was that Leclerc’s crash was an own goal as the team sent both drivers out for their exploratory laps in soaking conditions on intermediate tyres, when others went for full wets.
Hamilton admitted that he’d also had a moment and was lucky to escape his team mate’s fate.
“I’ve watched it quite a few times,” said Leclerc when I asked him about the crash. “Honestly, I can drive around 100 times, and there’s not as much you can do as a driver.
“I think the mistake was in the first place to be out on inter tyres, with those track conditions and this we need to understand what we’ve done wrong as a team.
“I won’t go too deep into that, but obviously, I think this was the main mistake that then cost us a lot. But yeah, obviously that made the whole day a lot more difficult for the mechanics, for me as well not doing as many laps as others, but I don’t feel like I’ve paid the price of it today.”
Leclerc agreed that P8 was as much as the team could expect given the overall lack of pace.
“We’re just not fast enough,” he said. “We’ve got to analyse. There was something strange on our side. I had to change massively, the car, the tools and everything, in order to have kind of a balance I liked. It was very different. So we’ve got to look into it to understand what happened there.”
Asked if the car wasn’t 100 percent after the rebuild he said: “I don’t want to say that for now. The mechanics have done an incredible job putting everything on and to be honest, we’ve changed few things on the cars as well in terms of setup.
“It’s unclear to me whether the set-up changes had had a much bigger impact than what I thought, or whether there’s something off. But this will look tonight.”
Ferrari’s lack of performance is a real concern for a team that can’t afford to be starting in P8, with much now riding on updates expected for Imola and beyond.
“It is frustrating. But to be honest this weekend I feel like – and that’s probably even more frustrating – is that I feel we are maximising the potential of the car. It’s just that the potential of the car is just not there. When I finish a lap, again today in qualifying, I feel very satisfied with my lap, but it’s only bringing us whatever it is, P8 or something.
“So yeah, we’ve got to look at it. I think a track like this also highlights our weaknesses. There’s a lot of low-speed content. Williams are in front of us, and I consider my lap a good one. It’s pretty easy to understand where we are lacking.
“We are just not fast, and whatever we do with the car, we can run it in different ways, but we just don’t have the downforce that the others have at the moment, especially at low speeds.”
Lewis Hamilton has taken a lot of flak recently but the Miami sprint result was a boost
A bold strategy call and a great third place for Lewis Hamilton and Scuderia Ferrari in Saturday’s Miami sprint was a welcome boost after their recent struggles.
It was also a sign that any wild suggestions of a premature end to their relationship are wide of the mark – Hamilton is not the kind of guy to give up on a challenge.
Speaking after the sprint chequered flag he admitted that there is still a long way to go.
“The fact is so far we’re not extracting everything,” he said. “I don’t think we’re extracting everything from the car, and that’s what we need to work on to extract the full potential of the car. I think we have good downforce.
“I don’t think we’re on the same pace as as in McLarens, but I think we we should be fighting a little bit closer, perhaps, to to the Bulls and to McLaren.
“So I think there’s a lot of elements that we need to elevate, and hopefully we’ll try and see if we can do that into into qualifying today. Definitely lots learned already so far.”
It’s not been an easy start to 2026 for Hamilton, and his regular assertion that he’s simply taking time to get used to a new car and team has been met with some scepticism.
However others who are going through the same process this year know exactly what he’s facing as he moves along the learning curve.
Carlos Sainz has noted since the start of the year that he’s been in the same situation, having done the opposite swap from Ferrari to Mercedes power units.
“I’m not surprised at all,” said the Spaniard when I asked him about Hamilton’s struggles.
“I think for me, I expected it to myself, and I expected it with him, because in this sport, there are no secrets. And when you are up against two team mates like we are, like Alex and Charles, that they know the team inside out, and they are already performing at the maximum that that car can perform.
“So you can only do just a little bit better or the same as them. You cannot suddenly arrive and be two three tenths quicker, because it’s not possible. They are already at the limit of the car.
“So when you jump to any team and you’re expected by yourself and by everyone around you to be at that level, you know it’s going to take time if there’s no secrets. They know a lot more than you, and it’s going to take a bit of time. And the sooner you make that process, and the sooner you are at that level, the better.
“But for some drivers, it might take longer or shorter. Lewis had an amazing weekend in China. Then he seemed to have a bit more trouble now. But it’s going to take time for both.”
So how long is it acceptable for a driver to take to make that transition?
“It’s a tricky question, because it depends,” said Sainz. “It depends how natural the car comes to you, depends how natural the relationship with engineers and that blend comes.
“I’ve always said that to know a car well, you need at least half a year to a year to experience everything with that car. That doesn’t mean that you cannot perform during that year. This is a different topic. You can perform at 100% or at 99, and your 99 might still be pretty good, but the 100% for sure, there’s things that you need for sure, half a year, I would say, to experience.
“And I’m not using it as an excuse. I want to perform like I did in Jeddah from race one, even if I am at 97 instead of 99. But it’s I just know it takes time, and I’m going to be demanding with myself.”
You could look at history and point out examples of drivers making a smooth transition and even winning their first races with new teams.
The fact is that the current ground effect cars are much trickier to drive at the limit than those of the past, and range of controls available to drivers far more complicated.
“These cars nowadays, I feel like you need to drive them in a very specific way to be quick,” said Sainz.
“I feel like the cars of ’21 you could come in with two or three different driving styles and more or less get the same lap time, because the car would allow you to get to that limit in different ways.
“I feel the more I get to drive this generation of cars, the more I dig into the data, the more I realise you need to be closed loop to one driving style. And if you don’t drive in that way, you’re never going to be quick.
“And it’s just how the car interacts with you, which allows you to drive in that specific way that you need to make sure you understand. I think these cars are particularly difficult.”
Esteban Ocon’s move from Alpine to Haas has been less high profile than those of Hamilton and Sainz, and he’s had some decent races and scored points. However he’s not had it easy either.
“It’s very difficult,” said the Frenchman when I asked him. “And especially when you change a car’s philosophy, because the Haas car and the Ferrari car have a lot of similarities, so I can relate a little bit to Lewis on that side, having driven the Merc as well in the past, it’s a very different way of driving the car – or extracting the potential of it. And the car feels very different.
“So it’s not easy, for sure, to adapt to that. I’m sure he will find a way very quickly. And in the meantime, I also have to improve quite a lot of things as well, still that I’m in a way of doing. It’s been five races, so things are getting more to normal. There’s more routine now going on, and how we prepare weekends, and how I feel I drive the car.
“I know straight away when something is not quite right, or where it should be compared to before, where I thought it was normality. So the more you drive, the more you learn. But there is at some point, you know, there is no adapting to it. You just have to deal with it.”
Ocon agrees with Sainz that the current ground effect cars are particularly difficult.
“For sure. I don’t think they are forgiving these cars at all, the way they are stiff, how they bounce. You know, how the tyres react. They are better these tyres, but they always tend to understeer quite a lot mid-corner.
“I don’t think there are two ways of driving it. You need to go with one way. There is no other direction that you can drive the car. You need to choose the quickest way, and that’s it.”
Ocon’s boss Ayao Komatsu has suggested that it’s easier for young drivers to adjust to the current cars than those with more knowledge. It’s a curious situation that life is harder for more experienced drivers.
“I think if you come from junior formulas and you go straight into that car you put everything that you’ve learned you know away and you just go into it,” said Ocon. “And you learn the new thing again.
“Now, with our experience, I mean, Lewis has much more experience than me, he’s driven a lot of different cars, but a lot of the same one as well for a long time. So I can understand why it’s not easy. And I know it’s also not easy for me, or for Carlos. But we’ll get there.”
Brown was poking fun at Christian Horner and Red Bull
McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown says the ‘Tire Water!’ drink bottle he displayed on the pit wall in Miami on Friday was a dig at Red Bull boss Christian Horner on what he calls the “serious issue” of teams making accusations about potential illegalities on rival cars.
In 2024 there were suggestions from the Red Bull camp that McLaren was using water in its tyres as a strategy for cooling.
Brown says he’s frustrated that teams can make allegations that cannot be backed up, but which potentially do damage to the accused.
He says that teams should make a formal protest, and that to ensure that they are not frivolous the fee should have a potential impact on the cost cap.
“My new water bottle, so that was poking fun in a serious issue, which is teams have historically made allegations of other teams,” he said. “Most recently, one team focuses on that strategy more than others.
“And I think that there’s a proper way to protest a team at the end of the race, and you have to make it formal, disclose where it comes from, you put some money down. I think that process should be extended to all allegations, to stop the frivolous allegations which are intended only to be a distraction.
“So if you had to put up some money and put on paper and not back channel, what your allegations are. I think that would be a way to clean up the bogus allegations that happen in this sport, which are not very sporting.
“And if someone does believe there’s a technical issue, by all means, you’re entitled to it. Put it on paper, put your money down. You should come against your cost cap if it turns out you’re wrong, and I think that will significantly stop the bogus allegations that come from some teams in the sport.”
Asked what sort of number the fee should be he said: “It needs to be meaningful from a I’m choosing to spend money on that instead of my own racing car. We’re all right at the limit of the budget cap.
“I know how much we will not waste a dollar on anything that we don’t think brings performance. So it’s probably 25 grand.
“If it was kind of would I spend 25 grand on a distraction tactic or development of my own race car, I’d spend 25 grand on my race car all day long. So it doesn’t need to be hundreds of thousands, but it needs to be meaningful enough that you’re taking away performance you’re spending on your car.”
Adam Cooper F1 