One of the first to come in for slick tyres in the Miami Sprint, it was Lewis Hamilton who made the inspired call to bolt a set of soft tyres onto his Ferrari SF-25.

Saturday’s 19-lap Sprint in Miami got off to a delayed start as the rain bucketed down at the Autodrome, forcing Race Control to abort the start after a formation lap.

Lewis Hamilton: I was like, let’s just go for it

That reduced the race to 18 laps, which began with two laps behind the Safety Car and then a standing start.

Hamilton lined up seventh, P6 on the grid vacant after Charles Leclerc’s crashed on his way to the grid for the initial start, but as the track tried out, teams and drivers had to make the call to risk it all by pitting for slick tyres in a race where only the top eight would score points.

Hamilton, who had been running in sixth place, not only rolled the dice on lap 12 as one of the very first to stop, but he also went with the soft tyres instead of the mediums.

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His Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami initially made the call to go with the mediums before Hamilton overrode his decision.

Hamilton: “It’s too late to go for dries, right?”

Adami: “Yeah.”

Hamilton: “I mean I’ve got no grip out here mate, so the time would be now.”

Hamilton: “Only 16 is wet.”

Adami: “Okay, box for medium.”

Hamilton: “No, soft mate. Soft!”

Adami: “Box. Soft, copy soft.”

Hamilton emerged from the pits in ninth place, but while he made gains as those of him pitted for slick tyres, he also pulled off a brilliant overtake on Max Verstappen, who had opted for the medium tyres.

Hamilton finished the Sprint in third place, securing only his second top three result as a Ferrari driver. Both have come in Sprint events.

“I really, really did struggle on the inters,” he told Romain Grosjean after the Sprint as the former F1 driver carried out on the on-track interviews.

“I think everyone was struggling on them and I just I made that call at the end. I was like, I’m coming in because I was not going nowhere.

“So take the risk, take the gamble, and it paid off.”

He later added: “I was just sliding around. I had the Williams behind me, I think, and there was another one behind him who was most likely I was going to be overtaken by.

“So I was like, I’ve got to roll the dice. I was full lock through Turn 12 and full lock through Turn 16 and it still wasn’t turning.

“So I was like, let’s just go for it. If I’m honest, I should have done it maybe a lap or two before that. I think it would have been probably the same result because these guys [McLaren] were a bit too far ahead.”

Hamilton will have a tough time repeating his Sprint podium in the Grand Prix as he qualified 12th on Saturday evening, out in Q2.

“The sprint race was better than qualifying, but we are where we are,” he told media including PlanetF1.com. “We need some upgrades. We need some improvements. Really, we’ve got lots of things that need to be better.

“I don’t feel it in my heart and as I said, I’m trying everything. We’re trying everything. The smallest, bit of time and I was out.

“If we went out on the new tyre, I probably would have been in Q3 and then maybe I’ll be eighth or ninth with Charles, so it doesn’t make a huge difference.

“But the fact is, we are trying and we don’t have the pace.”

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