Miami Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton fumes at Ferrari, pressure continues to mount on Jack Doohan and Red Bull bemoans “depressing” pace

The noise is getting louder for Jack Doohan - the Australian F1 rookie who hit a fresh low on Monday. Plus Lewis Hamilton blows up at his Ferrari team. Here’s your Miami GP Talking Points.

Jack Doohan revealed he would be taking some time for reflection after the turbulent start to his Formula 1 career continued at the Miami Grand Prix with a second DNF for the year.

Pressure on the son of motorcycle legend Mick Doohan continues to mount after Doohan crashed out on the opening lap.

On a day of contrasting fortunes for the two Australians on the grid as Oscar Piastri took a third straight win, Doohan was forced out of the race with a tyre puncture after colliding with Liam Lawson at turn one.

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The crash left Lawson, whose race also came to an early end, fuming over the team radio:

“I got completely hit, mate. I have no idea what the Alpine was doing,” the Kiwi said.

The result continued the challenging start to Doohan’s maiden season in Formula 1 as the spectre of reserve driver Franco Colapinto hovers over the Australian.

New Zealand driver Liam Lawson and Alpine's French driver Jack Doohan clashed on the opening lap. Picture: AFP

In the opening six races, Doohan’s results have been: DNF, 13th, 15th, 14th, 17th and a second DNF in Miami.

Doohan crashed out on the opening lap of his home grand prix in Melbourne and suffered a scary high-speed qualifying crash at Suzuka in Japan after he failed to close the DRS into the corner.

The rookie is one of four drivers on the grid yet to score a point so far this year.

Doohan, who had out-qualified Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly for the first time in Miami, said the crash with Lawson was not “intentional” but added he would reflect on what he could do better ahead of the next race at Imola.

“I don’t want to comment, I haven’t seen the replay yet. As we all know, nothing would be intentional,” Doohan said of the lap-one crash.

“I unfortunately got squeezed there. I don’t know, maybe he had a car on his outside.

“We just have to look into it because it didn’t end well for me and I don’t think it helped him out as well. We’ve just got to keep our heads up and look forward to Imola now.

“Unfortunately the things that have gone wrong this weekend have been outside of my control, but you always have to reflect as well and see in those situations if there was anything I could have done better.

“So I will be reflecting on that for a brief period of time before switching my focus to the upcoming race in Imola.”

Jack Doohan has endured a nightmare debut F1 season. Picture: Getty

FERRARI FIGHT

Lewis Hamilton has labelled his radio attack at the Ferrari pit wall during the Miami Grand Prix as “sarcasm” after hitting out at what he described as “poor teamwork” and telling them to “have a tea break” during the race.

Frustrated at the speed of the decision-making from the pits, Hamilton lashed out at his team over the radio as he tried to plead his case for a switch with teammate Charles Leclerc.

As he urged the team to let him pass Leclerc, Hamilton said:

“You want me to sit here for the whole race? This is not good teamwork, that’s all I’m gonna say.”

The seven-time world champion followed up with: “In China I got out (of) the way” before one final dig as he was informed the cars would swap places, sniping “Have a tea break while you’re at it.”

Hamilton later explained his comments were sarcastic and made in the “heat of the battle”.

“Fred (Vasseur) came to my room (post-race), I just put my hand on his shoulder, like calm down, don’t be so sensitive,” Hamilton said as per motorsport.com.

“I could have said way worse things on the radio, like some of the things that other people have said in the past.

“Some of it was sarcasm. You’ve got to understand that we’re under a huge amount of pressure within the cars. You’re never going to get the most peaceful messages come through in the heat of battle.

“It wasn’t even anger, it wasn’t like I was effing and blinding – just make a decision. You’re sitting there on the chair, you’re got the stuff in front of you, you make the decision quick.

“For me, I’m like ‘we’re in a panic, we’re trying to keep the car on the track and a computer thinks fast.”

Leclerc finished the race seventh and Hamilton eighth.

The Monegasque driver later said he had “no bad feelings with Lewis”.

BLEAK BULLS

Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko was left bemoaning the team’s “depressing” race pace after world champion Max Verstappen fell to fourth place behind the flying McLarens.

After an opening lap scuffle with Lando Norris, Verstappen was unable to repel either of the papaya pair and finished almost 40 seconds behind race winner Oscar Piastri.

Marko lamented post-race the Red Bull was simply “too slow”.

“The main conclusion is we are too slow,” Marko told motorsport.com.

“We saw when they were driving flat out, we are seven tenths of a second behind. We saw the real speed for the first time.

“We have to find some performance straight away, but it was depressing how quick the McLarens really are.”

Fourth-placed Max Verstappen. Picture:

While he said he tried to put up a fight, Verstappen conceded his car was “quite far off”.

“Yesterday I said that I would try my very best and I gave it everything that I could, but it ended up being a struggle out there,” Verstappen said.

“I tried to put up a fight, but in the end it was impossible to keep them behind.

“We got a bit unlucky with the VSC, but of course that is part of racing and overall the pace wasn’t really there.

“The race was unfortunately quite difficult for us in general and we ultimately lacked pace … every time that I tried to get close or push a bit more, my tyres would overheat a lot.

“We need a bit more performance to make sure we are more competitive, but we were quite far off today.”

Originally published as Miami Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton fumes at Ferrari, pressure continues to mount on Jack Doohan and Red Bull bemoans “depressing” pace