![]() Having spent the entire weekend between 16th and 18th on the time charts, there wasn’t much for Tsunoda to be happy about going into the race. READ MORE: Wolff lauds Hamilton’s ‘mega’ Miami performance as he admits W14 is ‘poisonous’ to drive Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri – P11 Only Verstappen out-performed Hamilton on the less favourable hard-medium strategy, which, when you consider the pace advantage Verstappen has on the field, makes Hamilton’s drive all the more impressive. Utilising the fresh mediums and low fuel, he cut his way through Ferraris and Astons and Alpines alike to cross the line sixth. Nursing the hards until Lap 39, Hamilton emerged in 13th with 18 laps to run. Hanging on to position in the first stint as the lead in a train of hard tyre runners, he picked up spots as the medium shod cars peeled off for their stop. From where he was, Mercedes decided to split the strategies and put Hamilton on the slightly less preferred hard-medium tyre approach. Hamilton couldn’t match Russell’s pace to get into Q3 and was relegated to a 13th place start. Making genuine on track passes while taking care of the hard tyres rewarded the team with a top-five finish. From there he exhibited controlled aggression and precise passes to catch and pass the Ferrari, bringing home an unexpectedly strong result. While Sainz pitted the following lap to cover and emerged in sixth, the tight nature of the midfield meant that Russell exited the pits in 12th. READ MORE: ‘We couldn’t have done more today’ insists Russell after taking P4 in Miami He was on the popular medium-hard tyre strategy and pitted from fifth, running just over three seconds behind Carlos Sainz in fourth. Instead, Russell put on a clinic in race craft. That would lead one to expect a fall down the order once the lights went out. ![]() After fairly concerning practice pace – save for FP1 when both Mercs used an extra set of tyres to top the session – Russell did well to get into Q3 when his team mate could not, and benefitted from the errors made by both Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen to start further ahead of where he realistically should have been.
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