Lewis Hamilton went from the top three in the Miami GP sprint to out in Q2, such qualifying results ‘indigestible’ for his Ferrari team.

That is the claim put forward by respected Italian publication La Gazzetta dello Sport, as Hamilton’s one-lap performances at Ferrari remain a key talking point following his F1 2025 move from Mercedes.

Lewis Hamilton out in Q2 for first time with Ferrari

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

While Leclerc maintained his single-lap advantage over Hamilton in sprint qualifying – outpacing his seven-time World Champion team-mate by two tenths – it was Hamilton who delivered in the sprint, a perfectly-executed swap to dry tyres catapulting him to a P3 finish, with Leclerc having crashed out on the way to the grid in heavy rain.

But, that particular bubble was burst for Hamilton just hours later in qualifying for the main grand prix. Ironically, he further reduced a gap to Leclerc which had been over half a second at the previous rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, but dropped out at the Q2 stage for the first time since joining Ferrari.

From 0.5 seconds+, to two tenths, to six hundredths, but Hamilton did not make the cut to join team-mate Leclerc in the shootout for pole.

And as per La Gazzetto dello Sport, that was a result which was ‘indigestible’ for Ferrari, adding that the SF-25 challenger has ‘almost given the impression of regressing’ in the hands of Hamilton, with Miami cited as a glaring example.

The report adds that Hamilton and Leclerc are struggling to find an optimal balance between the front and rear of the SF-25, leading to many correcting steering inputs, which it is said the increased grip of new Pirelli tyres exacerbates.

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While Hamilton’s disappointment over a slow start to life at Ferrari has been well documented, Leclerc also has been left underwhelmed, due to the level of performance in the SF-25 which he sees currently.

The frustrations continued into Grand Prix Sunday in Miami as Leclerc crossed the line P7 and Hamilton P8, Ferrari twice ordering a driver swap in the pursuit of Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, an ultimately unsuccessful mission.

And following the race, Leclerc demanded internal talks take place at Ferrari, with the handling of team orders having led to a series of angsty Hamilton radio messages.

“I don’t know what to say,” Leclerc told DAZN F1. “We definitely have to talk about it internally. We’ll analyse it. And we have to do better. It’s not that we have to try, we have to do better.

“I need to talk more with the team than with Lewis. We didn’t do anything wrong. But the decisions we made as a team weren’t the right ones. That’s quite obvious. We have to do better.

“I’m not angry with Lewis or anything like that. There was no bad intention, he wanted to maximise the result just like I did. We lost a lot of time today and seeing how close we were to Antonelli, it’s a real shame.”

Ferrari sit P4 in the Constructors’ Championship standings, the gap to leaders McLaren already 152 points, McLaren the team which Ferrari pushed all the way to a title decider last season in Abu Dhabi.

And Leclerc is looking to work with Hamilton to improve Ferrari’s fortunes.

Asked by media, including PlanetF1.com, in Miami, whether this is the point that he and Hamilton join forces to pull Ferrari out of a difficult situation, Leclerc replied: “We need to, for sure.

“I think we will be quite aligned on the fact that today wasn’t the Sunday we wanted. And even though the pace is not there, I don’t think there was any miracles. If everything will have gone perfectly, maybe we finished above Kimi, but that’s it. There wasn’t much more in the car.

“So I think we need to separate the two things. Yes, we need to fix those issues that probably cost us one position, but the other seven or six positions are down to the car. And this we need to make it better.”

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