Lewis Hamilton reveals extent of Miami F1 car damage that left him in "no-man's land"

Lewis Hamilton says he was left in “no-man’s land” in the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, after a first lap clash with Franco Colapinto left him with bodywork damage.

The seven-time world champion had to run wide when Max Verstappen spun ahead of him on the first lap at Turn 2, and that left him behind Alpine's Franco Colapinto.

As he tried to regain a position they touched at Turn 11, and Lewis Hamilton suffered damage to his floor and right-hand sidepod.

He eventually finished in seventh on the road, although he later gained a spot when his team-mate Charles Leclerc received a penalty.

Hamilton says the damage to his Ferrari cost him "about half a second of downforce".

“I was really unlucky to get caught up with Max's spin, and obviously lost positions from there,” he said when asked by Crash.net about the first lap.

“And then got damage from Franco, and then that lost me a ton of downforce. And I was just in no-man's land after that.

“I lost about half a second of downforce on the car, and I was just driving around for nothing really – well, trying to get as many points as I could with the damage.”

Hamilton was particularly frustrated because after the sprint he had made changes for main qualifying, and he was much happier with the car.

“I think we progressed going into qualifying, and the laps to the grid felt really strong,” he said. “I was already feeling like, yeah, we're going to be strong in this race.

“And then obviously, with the damage – and it's the worst when it happens on lap one as well, because then there's just nothing you can do. Just a passenger.”

“Honestly I think without the damage, I think we would have been right up in the fight. The car was feeling good, as I said, on the laps the grid.

“So it's a shame, because it doesn't really truly reflect the hard work that the team has done. And yeah, a weekend to forget. We move forwards and we try and see if we can extract more at the next race.

“I think, as I said, we just started on the wrong foot this weekend. So the car was very snappy on the way into corners, and massive understeer mid-corner. So that's not the balance that you want. It was better for qualifying than going into the race.”