"We had good pace"- Lewis Hamilton admits he could've finished second at 2022 F1 Dutch GP had he got soft tires

Lewis Hamilton feels he could have finished second at the Dutch GP if he had stopped for soft tires just like Max Verstappen and George Russell did during the safety car period. The Dutch GP was turned on its head when the late-race safety car period meant that Mercedes gambled with Hamilton staying out on medium tires while teammate George Russell was pitted for soft tires.

This move left Hamilton exposed to an attack from Verstappen and the Briton was an easy target at the restart for not only Verstappen but drivers like George Russell and Charles Leclerc as well, who had bolted on a set of fresh soft tires. In the end, Hamilton would finish the race in P4 and this strategy cost him dearly.

On the restart, however, it was later revealed that Lewis Hamilton was in the wrong power mode which made Max Verstappen's job easier as he cruised past the Mercedes driver.

When questioned during the press conference over where he could have finished if he had Softs and whether there was an error during the restart, Lewis Hamilton said:

"I think at least second. We obviously got… we had good pace; we were closing on our on our one-stop strategy. We were obviously really unfortunate with the VSC. And that seems to have happened a lot this year. Basically, when you're doing slow laps, you're in one strategy, and when you go to start lap, you're in a different strategy and I was slightly late to it, but it wouldn't have made a difference. They’ve calculated the distance. I was into it, on the bank on the straight and either way he was coming past."

Lewis Hamilton feels the car didn't feel as fast in FP2

In FP2, Mercedes appeared to lack some of the performance it had in the first practice session. Hamilton was almost a second down on the fastest time and did not have the best of sessions overall. He said:

"We made some setup changes in between FP1 and FP2 and went a lot slower, or the other guys went a lot quicker - we just didn't feel as fast in the later session. I know George had some deployment issues here but my car didn't seem to be affected. It's George's turn to choose who goes first or second tomorrow so I assume I'll go first and naturally I'll provide him with a bit of a tow."

Lewis Hamilton will be starting the race in Monza from the back of the grid and it will be interesting to see what kind of impact he is able to make from that starting position.