F1: Lewis Hamilton tells Mercedes 'it's your job' over key strategy call confusion

Lewis Hamilton told Mercedes "it's your job" after his race engineer asked the British racer to make a key strategy decision during the inaugural Miami Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion again saw teammate George Russell benefit from a Safety Car and finish ahead despite starting three rows behind.

Hamilton was asked to decide if he wanted to stop under the Safety Car that was caused by Lando Norris' collision with Pierre Gasly. The Briton was perplexed by the team's lack of clarity, which eventually cost him a place to Russell, who made his first stop on Lap 41 and easily passed his illustrious teammate.

"In that scenario I have no clue where everyone is so when the team say it's your choice, I don't have the information to make the decision," Hamilton told Sky Sports. "That's what your job is, make the decision for me. You have all the details. I don't!"

"That's what you rely on the guys for, but today they gave it to me and I didn't understand it," he added. "It was just a bit unfortunate on the safety car but at least we got points today. We are finishing and reliability is good. We just have to keep trying.

"I'm excited at some stage to take a step forward, which we haven't yet."

Hamilton has cut a frustrated figure at times this season, and is now 23 points behind teammate Russell, who continued his run of top five finishes in the opening five races. The seven-time champion will be hoping Mercedes can turn around their fortunes sooner rather than later after again trailing Red Bull Racing and Ferrari.

Max Verstappen took his third win of the season in Miami after overtaking Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in the opening stages of the race. The Dutch racer reduced the gap to 19 points in the Drivers' championship, but wants his team to get on top of their reliability issues, which again hampered teammate Sergio Perez in Miami.

"We are quick but, as you can see, my Friday was terrible, which was not great if you want to have a good weekend. Also I think Checo had a few issues in the race, so we have to be on top of that. We have a lot of potential, but we need to make sure it's reliable," Verstappen said, as quoted on F1.com