Miami Grand Prix: Mercedes practice pace ‘kick in the guts’ says Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes ‘desperately’ need upgrades

Mercedes’ Miami Grand Prix practice session pace was “a kick in the guts”, according to Lewis Hamilton, who claims his team “desperately” need car upgrades.

Hamilton was seventh fastest and 0.928 seconds off the pace of leader and world champion Max Verstappen on Friday.

“It’s a kick in the guts and it’s a little bit difficult to take sometimes,” Hamilton said.

“We desperately need those upgrades. We have to keep our heads down for one more race and hopefully we will start a new path next race.”

Mercedes are set to reveal a major car development at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix on May 19-21.

“The car has some goodness, it is just very tricky to unlock it,” he claimed. “When the drivers have confidence, they can go quick.

“It is on a razor’s edge. This morning we seemed to be in a sweet spot. I don’t think we can extrapolate from this.”

Hamilton proceeded to drop to seventh, while Russell plummeted to a disappointing 15th in the second practice session, 1.286s off Verstappen’s pace.

“Same as every weekend – we are a second down,” Hamilton said. “[Miami] is a great place to be but we are not particularly quick and it’s a struggle out there. P1 looked quite good but in P2 the true pace came out.

“I am going to stay hopeful that we can get the car in a better place. We had the extreme bouncing last year but it feels like we are racing the same car.”

Russell added: “Similar thing to last year, when we were quickest on Friday and then knocked out in Q2 on Saturday.

“The car just changed even from the medium [tyre] run in P2. I felt strong, was on a good lap which would have put me in the top four and then put the soft tyres on and the car just wasn’t working for me.

“I think we understand a little bit why that is and have time to improve things overnight. Fine margins.

“If we get things right, there is no reason we can’t be ahead of Ferrari and Aston Martin.”

Ferrari pair Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished second and third in between Verstappen in first and Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez in fourth.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris of McLaren notched ahead of Hamilton, who was quicker than Lance Stroll (8th), Esteban Ocon (9th), and Alex Albon (10th).

Pierre Gasly, Kevin Magnussen, Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas all finished ahead of Russell in 15th.

There will be a third practice session on Saturday ahead of the all-important qualifying session.