Lewis Hamilton's Miami Grand Prix qualification disappointment has been put down to a gust of a wind.
The seven-time world champion put in a solid effort in the second round of qualification to finish with the second-fastest time in that period, but then slumped to eighth with a lap that was four tenths of a second slower in Q3. The British racer was almost a full second slower than Max Verstappen who claimed pole position.
Hamilton's qualification time took place on a medium tyre, such was the impact of the wind on the team's softer option. Mercedes' head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin explained how a combination of the tailwind present and tyre sensitivity ensured the 39-year-old's lap was compromised.
"We were pretty pleased with the lap time he did in Q2 and hoping to to repeat that in Q3, " Shovlin said in a video released by the team."It wasn’t really an issue with the grip initially, and the start of the lap was actually quite good. He was unlucky in that as he came around to turn 11, he got a gust of wind that was from behind.
"What that does is actually drops the amount of downforce on the car quite significantly. So as he went into that corner had quite a big oversteer. That then puts temperature [heat] in the tyres.
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"Once that temperature’s in, that’s a very tight, twisty section, there’s no way for them to cool down and that’s what then causes the loss of grip. So had it not been for the gust of wind, it would have been a better lap for sure."
Shovlin also detailed their reasoning for utilising a the medium tyre. The constructor suggested struggles from sprint qualification ensured the team had greater limitations to deal with as qualification for the race proper progressed.
Lewis Hamilton in action on track at the Miami Grand Prix (F1 TV)He said: “We had a look in FP1, did a lap on [softs], we weren’t unusual in doing that. But what was a bit different was in Q1 we decided to do two new sets, so we actually did three runs with both drivers, a used and two new.
“That was [partly] because we’d struggled the day before in the sprint qualifying. We wanted to make sure the drivers had time to understand what the car was doing, but it put us one set down to the other. So then when you finally get to Q3, we only had one remaining.
“We did actually do a run on the medium tyre [in Q3]. We had seen it was pretty competitive the day before. We didn’t think it was quicker, but for Lewis actually, because the first the first round had gone so badly with the gust of wind, that medium was actually the time that that he qualified on.
“We used it because we weren’t seeing a big single-lap drop, so we weren’t too worried about having that lap on the tyre come the race on Sunday.”
Hamilton went on to finish sixth in the United States, two places ahead of teammate George Russell. McLaren star Lando Norris topped the podium in Miami to earn his first grand prix win as Max Verstappen dropped to second having dominated most of the season.
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