Ferrari car leaves Hamilton and Leclerc disheartened: 'That's our pace'

After taking sprint pole position in China, the seven-time champion Hamilton sees that they were just not fast enough today. "It was a better session. P1 was probably a bit better, the car was a bit better, the car was a bit nicer to drive. We are just lacking speed but we just keep working from there," he began to F1 TV.

The Briton was not too optimistic about Saturday's Sprint either, and does not expect to move up in terms of positions. "I think all the cars ahead are faster. I don't know what else to say."

Regarding the rest of the weekend, he concluded: "There's always ideas. Whether or not they will be right or not.. there's definitely learnings to be taken - set-up changes, how the car behaved, there's definitely work to do to pick up speed going into the rest of the weekend."

Similarly to his teammate, the Monegasque driver was not happy with the SF-25. Also taking to F1 TV, Leclerc was clear about how the session was. "Bad. The lap was good. But the pace is just not at all there for now, so it’s a bit annoying but it’s the way it is for now."

He then explained this just where Ferrari are in this moment in time. "I’ll try my best tomorrow to try to do something special with the start, but to be honest, there’s not much room for improvement today. It was just… that’s the pace of the car."

Moreover, Leclerc struggled to find positives at all. "It’s every corner, really, so it’s not like we are particularly weak in one type of corner. Yes, the slow speed seems to be a little bit more of our weakness, but it changes from one weekend to the other, so it’s just not great."

Saturday in Miami continues with the Sprint and Qualifying. In between the two seasons, teams will be allowed to make changes before re-entering parc fermé.