Lewis Hamilton managed to finish sixth from thirteenth on the grid. According to Hamilton, however, it could have been much more if Mercedes had made the right strategic decisions. In fact, Hamilton believes he could have competed with Verstappen.
Shortly after the start it started to rain and at Mercedes they decided to keep George Russell and Lewis Hamilton on track with dry weather tires and to postpone a possible pit stop. In retrospect, this turned out to be a wrong strategic decision because it lost a lot of ground to the competition.
“Had we made the right strategic decision in those circumstances I would have been able to fight for the top two,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 afterwards. “To be honest I think I could have competed with Max.”
“Especially when the track got dry, we were not that far off with our speed. I’m not going to say we would have beaten him but I think we would have been close.”