The Mercedes driver battled up the order from his lowly starting position of 15th to hold sixth place for the middle part of the race, but was unable to pit under the virtual safety car period when the pitlane was closed due to both Fernando Alonso’s Alpine and Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren stopping on the track.
Once Hamilton could pit, he returned to the action in 12th place and with fresh medium tyres was able to climb back up to 10th place at the chequered flag.
But the seven-time F1 world champion says he lacked pace needed to progress further, let alone challenge the frontrunners.
Despite a series of set-up experiments during the Saudi Arabian GP weekend, blamed for his poor qualifying performance, Hamilton conceded Mercedes remained without the car to fight Ferrari and Red Bull both in terms of grip and top speed.
“Right now we are not fighting for the top step, we are still far off the guys who are ahead and we’ve got a lot of work to do. It feels like a long way away,”…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Motorsport.com – All – Stories…