Hamilton savours rare Red Bull sighting

Lewis Hamilton was left with a "great feeling" after being able to fight with the Red Bull of Sergio Perez during the Miami Grand Prix.

From eighth on the grid, Hamilton was initially battling with Nico Hulkenberg for position as his hard compound tyres fired up as he ran the alternate strategy.

After finally passing Hulkenberg and his switch to the medium tyres, Hamilton was engrossed in a battle for fifth with Perez, but ultimately could not pass the Mexican.

However, sixth was Hamilton's best result in a grand prix since second in Mexico City 10 races ago on a day he was pleased with the performance from his W15.

"I had some enjoyable battles out there. I was giving it everything I had to make progress and made a couple of good overtakes," Hamilton explained.

"We were challenging the Red Bull at the end so to be able to race them felt great, it was probably the best day of racing I've had this year, so we just need to keep pushing.

"I didn't have the pace of the guys ahead of me, but I was just able to hold on with the DRS," he added to media including RacingNews365.

"Without the DRS, they did start to pull away towards the end, but still to keep them in distance was a really great feeling."

Mercedes fourth-quickest

Mercedes was firmly the fourth-fastest car in Miami, evidenced by George Russell and Hamilton sharing the fourth row on the grid.

Post-race, Russell described how he felt Mercedes was now firmly the fourth-quickest team in F1 behind McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari.

It is a claim Hamilton agreed with.

"I don't really see the importance of that," he said when Russell's statement was put to him.

"You've seen where we qualified and where we are in the championship, so you can make the assumption of that."