Ferrari trying to take positives after Saturday in Miami

While Hamilton was third in the Miami GP Sprint Race, he came tumbling down in qualifying as he failed to make it into Q3 for the first time since he joined Ferrari.

Charles Leclerc, on the other hand, was only eighth, which was an added pain after he crashed even before the Sprint Race started as he aquaplaned on his way to the grid.

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur did not hide his dissatisfaction with his team's performance; he said: "We are not happy with our qualifying today as we struggled too much with the new sets of tyres right from Q1.

"We were losing a lot in turns 1 and 2, while in the rest of the lap our pace was decent. We need to see all the data, as this weekend we are not extracting all the potential of the car, and we were not able to find the right balance, especially for the flying laps.

"We can take some positives from the Sprint race," the Frenchman claimed, "as I think it showed our pace in the dry was quite good, and thanks to the right strategy, Lewis found himself in a position from which he could do a great job, recovering well from P7 and finishing on the podium.

"I’m confident we have a better race pace in the car, but of course it’s not easy to exploit it starting in the middle of the group.

"We need to be patient and see how the race will unfold, staying focused on ourselves, ready to seize any opportunity," Vasseur concluded.

Hamilton reflected on his day and made sure to point out that he suggested the switch from Inters to slicks in the Sprint Race. He commented: "Today was definitely an eventful one.

"We put in a strong performance in the Sprint, which was a great result given the challenging weather and our starting position. I suggested the switch to softs, and the team executed a fantastic pit stop that really made the difference.

"Qualifying was more difficult," the seven-time Formula 1 champion lamented. "We lacked grip and overall pace, and P12 isn’t where we want to be.

"But we’ll go through everything overnight and look at how we can optimize the strategy to fight back tomorrow," he concluded.

As for Leclerc, he bemoaned the way his Miami GP weekend has gone so far; he added: "It’s been a tough weekend so far.

"This morning wasn’t a great start, and in qualifying, I expected to have a chance to turn things around. We just don’t have the pace and the grip our competitors have, and a track like this reveals this weakness even more.

"This is not the result we want as a team, and there’s a lot of work ahead of us," the Monegasque concluded.