After a promising second place in Saturday morning’s sprint, Hamilton faced a recovery race from 18th on the grid.
But the seven-time world champion initially failed to make much progress on his soft tyres, finishing 15th before switching to medium tyres.
He said his car understeered so much during the first half of the race that he thought something was broken.
“I thought at first maybe I had tapped someone because I’ve never had so much understeer in my life, so I was turning at slow speed and waiting, waiting, waiting. “I was waiting,” Hamilton said.
“I thought I damaged something like some of the others because there was debris everywhere at one point, but that’s just the setup I chose.
“With better decisions on configuration, we might be where George [Russell, who finished sixth] It is, but we just have to keep fighting.”
Commenting on his short attempt to make his start on the softs pay off, he said: “Oh my God, I was the only one, I think, on the softs and it all fell apart after the first lap. C It was very difficult.”
Hamilton passed a few more midfielders and took advantage of the clash between Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo to claim ninth place. But he hopes the planned improvements in Miami will give Mercedes a much-needed boost in its fight against Ferrari and McLaren.
“It certainly wasn’t better than expected. We expected to be somewhere around there,” he added while speaking to Sky Sports F1.
“I hope we take a step forward in the next race. Until then we will be back in a factory next week trying to better position the car for Miami and hopefully we will have a better weekend.”
Russell said his sixth place finish was about as good as could be expected after struggling to keep up with the two Ferraris.
“This weekend we know where we are competing,” he told Sky Sports F1. “The last three races we were kind of in a battle with Fernando and [Oscar] Piastri too. P6 is where we are currently.
“It was an interesting weekend, with two different setups on the car between Friday and Sunday. So some information to look at, but ultimately we just have to dig into the data and continue to add performance to the car. “
After a promising second place in Saturday morning’s sprint, Hamilton faced a recovery race from 18th on the grid.
But the seven-time world champion initially failed to make much progress on his soft tyres, finishing 15th before switching to medium tyres.
He said his car understeered so much during the first half of the race that he thought something was broken.
“I thought at first maybe I had tapped someone because I’ve never had so much understeer in my life, so I was turning at slow speed and waiting, waiting, waiting. “I was waiting,” Hamilton said.
“I thought I damaged something like some of the others because there was debris everywhere at one point, but that’s just the setup I chose.
“With better decisions on configuration, we might be where George [Russell, who finished sixth] It is, but we just have to keep fighting.”
Commenting on his short attempt to make his start on the softs pay off, he said: “Oh my God, I was the only one, I think, on the softs and it all fell apart after the first lap. C It was very difficult.”
Hamilton passed a few more midfielders and took advantage of the clash between Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo to claim ninth place. But he hopes the planned improvements in Miami will give Mercedes a much-needed boost in its fight against Ferrari and McLaren.
“It certainly wasn’t better than expected. We expected to be somewhere around there,” he added while speaking to Sky Sports F1.
“I hope we take a step forward in the next race. Until then we will be back in a factory next week trying to better position the car for Miami and hopefully we will have a better weekend.”
Russell said his sixth place finish was about as good as could be expected after struggling to keep up with the two Ferraris.
“This weekend we know where we are competing,” he told Sky Sports F1. “The last three races we were kind of in a battle with Fernando and [Oscar] Piastri too. P6 is where we are currently.
“It was an interesting weekend, with two different setups on the car between Friday and Sunday. So some information to look at, but ultimately we just have to dig into the data and continue to add performance to the car. “