After falling from sixth to eighth on the opening lap of the Miami Grand Prix, the seven-time world champion managed to rally back to his starting place in the first stint, and was closing in on his old teammate’s Alfa Romeo , Valtteri Bottas, to go up one more place.
However, with 17 laps to go in the race, the safety car worked in favor of fellow Mercedes driver George Russell, who had stuck it out on hard tires for many more laps.
This meant that the young Brit could stop to mount a set of new medium tires and get in the wake of the other two cars. During that period of Safety Car, his track engineer, Peter Bonnington , asked Hamilton how his wheels were in order to study a possible pit stop and, although both ‘Bono’ and the team’s director of strategy, James Vowles , advised him stay out, they said they would “leave it to their choice”.
“You tell me, man. Don’t leave it to me,” the seven-time champion replied when that was raised.
The team opted to keep the Englishman on track with a set of used hards, while Russell was on fresh mediums. When Hamilton was asked about that debate, he explained: “When you’re there, you don’t have all the information, you don’t know where everyone is, and you don’t have the image that they have on the screen.”
“So when you’re given the responsibility to make a decision, it feels like you’re gambling, and I don’t like that,” he said. “I was like, ‘You guys make the decision,’ but either way we were unlucky.”
Hamilton eventually stayed on the tarmac to finish sixth but lost in his personal battle with George Russell, who took advantage of Bottas going wide at Turn 17 to pass the Finn.
The Silver Arrows champion said he was “waiting” for a change in fortune, having also lost time with the safety car that came out in Australia and the Virtual Safety Car in Saudi Arabia.
“Until then, I’ll keep working as hard as I can, and doing it with the team,” he said. “Today we have achieved good points as a team”.
For his part, the head of Mercedes, Toto Wolff , considered that Hamilton was “between a rock and a hard place” when the safety car came out, acknowledging that “it was not favorable for him, and yes for Russell”.
“George [Russell] had a window, with no one behind him, he was able to switch to a practically new medium,” the Austrian explained. “Lewis had to decide, whether to hold position on the hard or go on the soft, which would also have been difficult, it was a 5/5 decision, and it didn’t work out for him.”
“It’s not the first time this season that he hasn’t had any luck with the safety cars,” said the boss of the team that remains in third place in the constructors’ championship with 95 points.
