Lewis Hamilton had no definite answer to George Russell’s claims of Mercedes being fourth fastest team in F1 Miami GP.
Post the F1 Miami GP, Mercedes’ Russell made an interesting comment about their team being the fourth fastest behind Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren. The assessment came after yet another difficult outing for both the cars as their stalemate continued on.
After SQ2 knocked for both cars, they went point-less in the sprint race. The main qualifying was still better with both cars in the Top 10, but the grand prix wasn’t as huge. Hamilton ended up sixth after tough battles, while Russell was a lonely eighth.
They were not in the fight against any of the three teams above, even though Hamilton was close behind Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. The Brit had no definite answer when he was told about Russell’s comment regarding the position of the Mercedes team.
“I think we have to accept that we are the fourth fastest-team,” said Russell. The lap-times and the championship don’t lie, this is where we are and I think we’re fighting for the P5-P8 region week in, week out.”
To which Hamilton responded: “I don’t know. I don’t really see the point, the reason, the importance of that. You’ve seen where we qualified, you’ve seen where we are in the championships. So make your assumptions from that.”
Elaborating on their races, Hamilton naturally felt a bit better on his side as he was able to fight and finish close to Perez. “I had a good race,” he said. “I didn’t have the pace of the guys ahead of me, but I was just able to hold on with DRS. But, if it wasn’t for the DRS, they probably would have…they did start to pull away towards the end.
“But still, to keep them in distance is a really great feeling. But also, I was on an offset tyre [strategy], but not to Checo though, so I was actually on the same tyre as him.” While Hamilton had some smile, Russell was clueless about his race where he reckoned he suffered all-through and the car didn’t feel all right at all for him.
“Something just didn’t feel right, the car just had no grip, no pace and I was slower than Yuki for the whole of the last stint,” said Russell. “So need to go and see what’s going on. I don’t really know at the moment. It is swings and roundabouts for us at the moment, a good day is P5 and a bad day is P8, and it was a bad day so we finished P8.”
Here’s how F1 Miami GP panned out
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