John N
Heading practice times on Friday, George Russell was third-quickest on the long runs with an average only a couple of tenths shy of Leclerc’s Ferrari. With a raft of aerodynamic upgrades on the car, it seemed as though speed that had only ever been seen in the simulation was becoming a reality for the first time.
But Lewis Hamilton and Russell proceeded to qualify only sixth and 12th, respectively. The fastest Mercedes qualifying time was around 0.8 seconds adrift of Leclerc’s pole time. In the race before the advent of the late Safety Car, Hamilton was sixth behind Verstappen’s Red Bull, trailing 46 seconds behind him.
The first sign that Friday had not been delivered as shown in FP3 of Saturday morning when Hamilton and Russell could only record the 15th and 17th fastest times. The car’s serious porpoising issues returned with a vengeance, and its previous chassis balance disappeared. Feeling encouraged on Friday, the team lowered the car’s ride height for FP3 to optimize downforce.
👀🍿 @GeorgeRussell63 🆚 @LewisHamilton
The @MercedesAMGF1 pair go wheel-to-wheel!#MiamiGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/smdazWGGOu
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 9, 2022
The disastrous effect of this change led the team to return the car to its Friday settings for qualifying and the race. Yet the porpoising and ill balance remained. In the meantime, between Friday and qualifying, track grip increased, but other teams found as much as 1s per lap. That improvement was just not accessible to Mercedes. The team can see symptoms of a problem but cannot find its cause yet.
The ambitions of Hamilton and Russell were thus restricted on race day. They raced only with each other (once they’d taken advantage of Valtteri Bottas almost skating off the road in his Alfa after the restart).
Hamilton, starting from the third row and opting to start on the medium tire, like everyone else in the top nine positions, made light contact with Alonso’s Alpine and lost some momentum. He quickly picked off Alonso and Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri to be running back in his grid position.
He was brought in for his switch to hards—on which he would complete the distance—on the 22nd of 57 laps. This brought him out one place (and around 7s) behind the yet-to-stop Russell. Ordinarily, it would be expected that the driver on the same compound tires but 22 laps newer would be much faster than Hamilton; but he wasn’t.
Another top five finish for @GeorgeRussell63 👍#MiamiGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/6fHFYr3JAg
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 9, 2022
The hard tires took as long as 20 laps to begin working properly. Russell had been relatively slow for the first 20 laps of his race, and only now was he beginning to lap at a respectable pace. This compound on this new track surface took an age to reach working temperature, but it would overheat once.
Only as enough tread wore off for its temperature to drop would not begin to work well. So Hamilton had to go through this cycle, too, and he was initially a little faster than Russell despite his new tires. Russell had to make his obligatory pit stop, but he was under no threat from behind. Mercedes opted to keep him out as long as possible, putting him in place to benefit from a Safety Car.
Thanks to the collision between Gasly and Lando Norris, which brought out the Safety Car just before his scheduled stop, he gained enough time on Hamilton ahead of him—who also needed a pit stop—to come out early after pitting. Therefore, he’d be exiting around 18s behind and was sure to finish behind with not many laps left.
The Safety Car allowed him to get a time-cheap pitstop and rejoin on Hamilton’s tail and medium compound tires. He was able to pass his teammate but only by leaving the track. He was instructed by race control to hand the place back, which he did before completing a DRS move to repass.
