Although Mercedes was far from challenging for the win once more in Miami, Lewis Hamilton recorded his best Grand Prix finish of the year and George Russell added points.
Despite the fact that only two spots separated them, Lewis Hamilton was far more satisfied with his Miami Grand Prix finish than his teammate George Russell.
A seven-time Formula 1 champion would hardly have been celebrating sixth place in previous years. But despite a challenging season so far, it is his best Grand Prix result, and he felt far more at ease in his Mercedes than he had in recent weeks.
Hamilton was happy with his afternoon’s work after a close battle with Nico Hulkenberg in the early going and an eventual bust chasing Sergio Perez. He exclaimed, “Amazing fun. In terms of races, I’ve really enjoyed this weekend. Being on track has been a lot of fun.
“I’ve fought some really amazing, hard, and close battles. I mean, I was thinking, “Oh jeez, this could be either a big crash into this corner or I’m going by,” as I was approaching Turn 11, up against the wall with the wheels locked. I’m so appreciative that I was able to experience that without feeling afraid at all.
“My team did a great job; it was really quite cool to be able to hold on to a Red Bull.” In addition, he was beaming with pride at Lando Norris’s win and acknowledged that he was proud of his old McLaren team as well as his fellow Brit.
By defeating Max Verstappen to the finish line in Florida, Norris became the 21st driver from Britain to win a world championship Formula One race. Russell, ranked number 20 on the list, won his first and only championship to date in Brazil in 2022.
Russell remarked of his friend Norris, “He’s deserving of a race victory probably many, many years ago.” “And it’s always great to see somebody get that chance to score a victory,” the driver said, speaking for all Formula 1 drivers in this era of dominance from one team and one driver.
Russell was pleased for Norris, but he wasn’t overly optimistic about his own performance, coming in eighth. “To be honest, it was a pretty dreadful race from start to finish,” he said glumly. I was up three spots, but after Checo [Perez] sent it down the inside, everyone had to check up a little, which hurt my start.
Something didn’t feel quite right, so I needed to check the car and the data. Then, I just had no pace at all there on in. Although this weekend has felt more challenging than the others, the outcomes have all been essentially the same.
“On a good day, we are in the range of P5 to P8, and today was a bad day; we completed P8. Lewis drove incredibly well, had a great day, and finished P6. We kind of are there.”
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