“I had the pace today to be in top 5” - Lewis Hamilton points to penalty and poor qualifying behind disappointing Dutch GP result

Lewis Hamilton believes a top-five finish in the Dutch GP was a certainty if it were not for the penalty and a poor qualifying result. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda after the race in Zandvoort, the Mercedes driver said the car had a competitive pace that could have helped the team a better result.

Knocked out of the second qualifying session, Hamilton clocked the 12th fastest time for the starting grid. Further penalized for impeding Sergio Perez in the session, he was slapped with a three-place grid penalty and had to start the race from 14th. The 39-year-old said he felt if he had qualified better and not had the penalty, Mercedes had the pace to finish higher than the eighth place he secured in the race. He reckoned that setup changes were made before qualifying but the wet session did not allow the team to test them, but the setup panned out well during the race.

Asked by Sportskeeda if it was a race that required damage limitation, and if a higher finishing place was a possibility, Hamilton replied:

“Yeah, yeah definitely. And if I just qualified, like, I should have qualified. If I didn't have the problem being qualifying, then, yeah, I think I had the pace today to be in the top, is definitely in the top five definitely. But if I started fourth, for example, I would have finished at least fourth.

Asked if he was comfortable about the setup for the race despite his complaints the previous day, the 39-year-old said:

“I didn't say it was very good. Yeah, good feeling with it. But yesterday we made a big setup change going into P3, but then it was wet, so we didn't even get to test it. Got in the session and it was very oversteery and then today I took out a bunch of wing and balanced it and it was fine.”

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Lewis Hamilton enjoyed his Dutch GP drive from fourteenth to eighth

Lewis Hamilton has shared several times this year that he enjoys battling the mid-field pack and surging through it. Given his race was compromised with a penalty following a poor qualifying session, his race involved damage limitation and battling through the field, aided by strategy and overtakes. The seven-time world champion felt a one-pitstop strategy might have worked better, and his result was the best that could have been achieved with the strategy the team used.

Describing his race to media including Sportskeeda, Hamilton said:

“Yeah, I had a lot, yeah, had a lot of fun today. Well, we planned to do a two -stop. We started on the soft. The soft tire, I think, was a very good tire. I felt much better than my medium tire on practice today. And the hard tire was feeling decent. It was really difficult to see kind of what I needed to do, whether to push for it. I was on a two, so trying to use up the tire, but also wasn't sure whether or not we might possibly go for a one. I had a bit of a lockup, which kind of then maybe... just stay on my normal strategy. Probably if I'd done one stuff and managed a little bit better. I probably could have done a one (pitstop). Maybe finish one spot ahead, but ultimately it wasn’t.”

While Hamilton finished eighth, George Russell started fourth on the grid and was able to finish one place higher than his teammate, in seventh. The British seven-time F1 champion is currently in sixth place with 154 points to his tally whereas his teammate is eight in the standings with a total of 122 points. Mercedes are fourth in the championship but they are 94 points behind Ferrari. In Zandvoort, the team from Maranello turned out to be the surprise package, as it was not expected to have the pace to beat the Silver Arrows. However, Ferrari has improved its performance and can perhaps depend on a more competitive form than before, in the second half of the calendar.