Lewis Hamilton says he made the wrong call on a “50-50 choice” on car set up after he finished fifth behind team mate George Russell.
Hamilton started seventh, four places behind Russell on the grid, on the hard tyre – the only driver among the top ten starters to do so. He sat in fifth behind Russell after passing Carlos Sainz Jnr at the Safety Car restart and finished five seconds behind his team mate at the chequered flag.
After the race, Russell was promoted to the podium in third when Fernando Alonso was handed a 10-second time penalty after his Aston Martin team were deemed to have failed to take an original five second time penalty correctly at his first stop. Hamilton finished just two tenths of a second behind Alonso in the classification.
“I feel we got some great points as a team,” Hamilton told Sky after the race. “George got third, which was amazing.
“I went forwards, which is always the hope – that you at least go forwards, one foot in front of the other. So I’m really grateful to have come through from seventh to fifth.”
After opting for a different strategy to many of his rivals, Hamilton does not believe the approach worked to his advantage.
“The strategy just didn’t really work out for me,” he said. “The set-up was a bit off.
“I think if I had the set-up that George had, I would have been in a bit of a better position. So lots to work on, but there are positives to take away from it.”
Hamilton says the difference in car set-up between his and Russell’s cars was a simple case of the team splitting their set up approaches between their two drivers.
“It’s just there was like a 50/50 choice – I chose one way, he chose another,” Hamilton explained.
“More often than not, the way he went is the wrong one, but it just happened to work. I could only match his pace rather than be quicker this weekend. But I’ll work hard to make sure that two are in a better place next time.”
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