Hamilton claims he was "on pace with Verstappen" during Dutch GP
F1 News
Lewis Hamilton believes that his Mercedes car had the pace to at least be on the podium during the Dutch Grand Prix. The British driver started out of position due to a mistake in qualifying, and the choice of the medium tyre didn't help him at the start of the race.
Had it not been for those two facts, Hamilton suggests he would've been racing with Verstappen. The Dutchman eventually won the race and was only really challenged by the wet weather conditions.
"It's hard to know, but I think today I had the pace. I was on pace with Max [Verstappen] in the race. But we were just out of position," Hamilton told GPblog and others after the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
Redemption
George Russell proved that their was pace in the Mercedes because he qualified in P3. Hamilton started in P13, and even dropped to P20 during the event. Hamilton explains how he felt to come back and finish sixth.
"I feel like today was redemption in the sense of it was terrible yesterday. I managed to dial the car a bit better today and overtook a bunch of people. To start 13th, and I was dead last at one point, to get back up to sixth. Yeah, I'm happy with that. I didn't start off that well, but I'm pretty happy with the drive that I did. Could've been higher for sure if we had made the right decision at the end of the day. We didn't [pit early], and we paid the price for that," Hamilton concluded.