Can Hamilton bounce back at Ferrari? 'They both didn't see this coming'

Ferrari had a weekend of highs and lows in Miami. Teammate Charles Leclerc crashed before the sprint race even started, but Hamilton surprised with a third-place finish in a wet and challenging sprint race. Palmer understands the decision to start both cars, a decision that the Italian Formula 1 team received a lot of criticism for.

“I think Ferrari sending their drivers on inters, just to learn what they could, made sense – The sudden downpour while Charles was on his out-lap obviously made the decision look foolish though,” he wrote in a column for the F1 website.

The race pace was also disappointing. Palmer finds the much-talked about radio discussion between Hamilton and the team about the team order concerning Leclerc not particularly noteworthy.

According to Palmer, the real problem lies with the SF-25 itself: “Every time we went onboard with Hamilton during qualifying, you could see him sliding on both axles, but particularly the rear. This is a clear indication that the car isn’t producing enough downforce and the floor upgrade the team brought a few races ago is clearly still not working properly.”

Ferrari's new floor was supposed to improve grip, but it still isn't effective. The car is also very sensitive to ride height. “By raising the car they lose a greater percentage of performance as the set-up falls further from their optimised window.”

Hamilton is struggling with the twitchy rear of the Ferrari. “It was this inconsistency that he was struggling with in the Mercedes last year,” says Palmer. “We saw him trying to rework his driving style in Melbourne to get more out of this car. Clearly that process is still ongoing.”

The collaboration with race engineer Riccardo Adami occasionally runs into difficulties as well. Palmer: “These are all teething problems that I doubt both team and driver were expecting to still be issues this far into the season.”

However, Palmer remains cautiously optimistic: “If the team can find a better window for the car then I’ve no doubt Ferrari still have the drivers and procedures in place to deliver victories.”