Race 6 - 2025 Miami Grand Prix [Miami International Autodrome]

[Nitrodaze]

Commentators or others can come up with any alternate reality theory they want, but the data doesn't lie.

Hamilton was quick on his out lap, but with the softer tires and pitting first that was expected. And a part of the "lap time" was the fact that the VSC ended when Leclerc was still coming out of the pits, so his VSC advantage wasn't as complete. Cue the second VSC, and Hamilton managed to close to within DRS under VSC, and had not been there before.

When Leclerc passed Sainz, the next timing sector showed Hamilton less than .25 behind. That grew to almost 9/10ths through the lap. As the data clearly shows, Leclerc was faster for the next two laps, even though Hamilton was still in DRS range. On the third lap Lewis was faster.... all of 1/1000th of a second. During those 4 laps, Lewis made no less than 5 radio calls wanting the swap, even though he was at risk of dropping out of DRS range. So when the swap took place, the data Ferrari had was that Leclerc was quicker 2 of the 3 laps, on tires slower to come into temp, running in a lower power deployment mode. Far from beind towed by Hamilton, Leclerc dropped back almost a second and a half and was out of DRS range. A couple laps later Charles started taking time out of Lewis again, probably when his tires were up to temp. He pulled himself back into DRS range without much trouble, and was then smart enough to not push up too close and eat his tires, as well as using alternate lines to avoid the dirty air from ahead at times. He continued to be faster back through the second swap, and until race end. In the last four laps he gapped Lewis by over 2 seconds, and reeled Kimi in by a second.

As for Leclerc not being a team player? Rubbish if you ask me. The team made a single call and asked Charles to swap, and he swapped. He even suggested not swapping back stating it would cost the team time as he was still thinking they were catching Antonelli quicker. Though Lewis gave up a place in China, he was obviously slower, struggling with the car, and really just avoiding the team having to do it later. In the case of Miami Charles was in fact quicker, so he had no reason to volunteer to yield to a car struggling to stay in DRS. But when the team asked just once, he swapped.

I fully agree Ferrari need to act quicker and be smarter in their decisions and how they impact the whole team. But in this case, they set a precedent of letter the slower car through in hopes it would work. They simply caved, even though on the previous lap they had instructed Lewis to stay in DRS to open the gap to Sainz. And basic communications to the drivers are not respected, enforced, or punished when not. As I said in the other post, if the drivers just followe pit wall direction, then pit wall becomes accountable for problems they create.

We agree on one thing: Both Ferraris were faster than Antonelli at some point after the VSC. But you seem to read the speed plot differently than professional drivers who have looked at this plot and are saying something quite different to you. Of course, we would never know how it would have turned out if they had reacted quicker. There is no doubt that LeClerc is quicker of the two on the same tire compound at the moment. But with the setup of the new medium to a few laps old hards, on evidence, Hamilton was quicker in that stint of the race and may have used those fresh tires to pull in Antonelli. But then again, you are very unlikely to see that. You did not factor in that both Ferrari drivers had to overtake Sainz and the effect of that on how that is represented on the plot. Or that, though Hamilton lost ground during that overtake, he quickly was on to LeClerc soon after due to the faster tires.

I expected LeClerc to be with Hamilton throughout after the swap for two reasons; Firstly, he would benefit from being towed along. Secondly, he is more efficient through the corners than Hamilton at the moment. The corners are where Hamilton loses all his lap times.Hence, LeClerc would always appeared to be faster of the pair through the corners. Even so, patience and cooperation to try out an alternate strategy were the smarter thing to do. Though LeClerc appeared faster after they swapped them back, he was not fast enough to catch Antonelli. The end of the race bears out that fact, even if we factor in time lost in the swap

Whichever way you look at it, the driver pairing did not work together cooperatively to experiment to see if an alternative approach may yield a different result. If the Ferrari pitwall thought Hamilton was too slow for the experiment of swapping them to work, they would have said so and most likely refused to swap them. On evidence, they took too long to work out the potential of the scenario.