Lewis Hamilton cut a frustrated figure during the F1 Miami Grand Prix and the Briton would not hide how he felt about Ferrari en route to an eighth-place finish in Florida.
The seven-time Formula 1 champion often voiced his irritation over the Scuderia’s radio last Sunday about how they handled utilising team orders during the race at Hard Rock Stadium. Ferrari regularly dithered before making a decision during a disappointing day for the squad.
Hamilton finished the Miami GP 60.186 seconds behind Oscar Piastri, as the McLaren driver scored his fourth win of the 2025 F1 season so far. Ferrari have not won a Grand Prix yet this term and have one podium, after Charles Leclerc came third in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Leclerc was also 57.036s behind Piastri in the Miami GP as the Monegasque led Hamilton to the chequered flag in P7. Ferrari ordered the latter to let his teammate back through on Lap 53 of 57, which only added to his frustration from how they handled team orders earlier on.
Jolyon Palmer thinks Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari team order complaints in Miami were misleading
Hamilton probed his race engineer Riccardo Adami, ‘You want me to let him past, as well?’, after being informed his lead over Williams rival Carlos Sainz behind was only 1.4s after he and Leclerc traded places. It added to the many tetchy radio calls from the Briton in Miami.
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The 40-year-old also told Adami, ‘This is not good teamwork’, and to, ‘Have a tea break’, as Hamilton waited for Ferrari to eventually tell Leclerc to switch places on L38. Ferrari waited almost four laps to make the call after Hamilton caught Leclerc thanks to his medium tyres.
Yet Jolyon Palmer feels Hamilton was being somewhat misleading with his complaints about Ferrari’s team orders in the Miami GP. The ex-Renault F1 driver thinks the Briton’s anger was misplaced, as his pace on medium tyres was not that much stronger than Leclerc’s on hards.
Palmer has told F1’s website: “Much was made of the team radio situation between the two drivers, but I don’t think Ferrari mishandled things particularly…
“Maybe they could have offered Lewis the chance to pass Charles a little sooner, and you could argue this delay maybe cost him the peak of his medium tyres.
“In reality, though, Lewis actually went no quicker once his teammate let him through. So, Ferrari were partly justified in their deliberations. It clearly wasn’t as clear-cut as their new signing was suggesting.
“Had the team allowed Hamilton through immediately, even if he had been able to extract more pace with his tyres in a better condition, it’s incredibly unlikely he’d have caught and passed [Andrea Kimi] Antonelli, who remained comfortably out of striking distance.”
Lewis Hamilton only gained on Andrea Kimi Antonelli by 2.859s in 15 laps at the Miami GP
Hamilton became increasingly angrier as the Miami GP progressed once Adami gave him the stereotypical Ferrari reply of, ‘I’ll come back to you’, when the Briton first asked to be let past Leclerc. The four laps he then spent in behind the Monegasque negated his tyre advantage.
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So, once Ferrari eventually gave Leclerc the call to swap places, a call he only got once and a call he immediately obeyed, Hamilton struggled to make substantial progress into the deficit he faced to Antonelli in the Mercedes the seven-time champion ditched to join the Scuderia.
Leclerc was 6.645s behind Antonelli after he and Hamilton overtook Sainz on L34 and he got it down to 5.163s by the time Ferrari issued team orders on L38. But Hamilton then only got the margin down to 2.304s by the time that the Scuderia ordered the reverse switch on L53.
Had Ferrari made the initial switch sooner, then Hamilton may have made more inroads and tried a move on Antonelli for sixth place without losing the edge of his medium tyres behind Leclerc. But how they dealt with the Miami GP saw Antonelli finish 1.534s in front of Leclerc.
