Lewis Hamilton's F1 transition to Ferrari is a work in progress entering Miami Grand Prix
"I'm trying to stay off the pizzas and the pasta, which I'm not doing very well with. I was there last week and have like three pizzas in two days,' Hamilton said with a laugh during media day May 1 ahead of the 2025 Miami Grand Prix weekend at Miami International Autodrome.
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Hamilton's performance five races into his Ferrari career after leaving Mercedes, however, has been far from a lighthearted or laughing matter for the seven-time Formula 1 champion.
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While Hamilton won the first Sprint race of the season at the Chinese Grand Prix March 22, he was disqualified from the the main race due to a technical matter. Hamilton started the year with a 10th place finish in Australia. He finished seventh in Japan, fifth in Bahrain, and seventh again in Saudi Arabia.
More concerning, Hamilton has placed behind his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in four of the five races, China being the exception, and he's placed behind both Mercedes drivers — George Russell and Kimi Antonelli — in three races this season.
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It makes you wonder if Hamilton — who has watched Red Bull's Max Verstappen take hold of the sport, winning four consecutive F1 Drivers' Championships after Hamilton's last in 2020 — still has it. Hamilton's elusive eighth title would break a tie with Michael Schumacher for the most all-time in F1.
"I try not to really focus on opinions of people that have no insight into actually what is going on – insights from individuals that have never been in my position,' Hamilton said when asked about other's opinions of the state of his career amid his tough start at Ferrari. "So yeah, I just keep my head down and try to continue to enjoy the work that I do with the people I work with."
Acclimating to a new car and new team takes time, but Hamilton hopes to make some progress this weekend in Miami after visiting Ferrari's F1 headquarters in Maranello, Italy, last week.
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Still, the pressure is on. He's placed sixth in the previous three Miami races, and it's been nearly a year since his last F1 win.
Hamilton stood atop the podium twice last year: He won at his home race, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 7, and he won the Belgium Grand Prix July 28. Hamilton inherited the latter victory after finishing second when his former teammate was disqualified from first place because his car did not meet post-race weight requirements.
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The two victories ended a winless drought Hamilton experienced during the 2022 and 2023 F1 seasons. He finished in second place eight times during that span.
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Before then, Hamilton was the sport's best driver after championships in 2008, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
'When I joined Mercedes, the first six months were tough getting attuned to working with new people,' Hamilton said. 'Obviously, the engineers I'm working with now are used to setting up a car for a different driver and a different driving style, and I'm used to driving a car with a different driving style. So, it's a combination of a bunch of different things.'
Asked to elaborate more specifically, Hamilton said there are 'many things, lots of different things — there's not one particular.'
Is there any way Hamilton and Ferrari can shorten their adjustment to each other to less than the six months it took him when he first joined Mercedes in 2013?
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"We're trying to work as hard as we can to shorten that, but it could be longer,' Hamilton said. 'Who knows?'
There's a long season ahead — 16 more races this year — to work out their new relationship, but time isn't on 40-year-old Hamilton's side.
'There are things that we've made adjustments to," he said. "We'll see how they work this weekend."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: F1 Miami Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton off to rough start with Ferrari
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