Hamilton saw clear winning chance: 'made our life a lot harder'

'Hamilton could have won'

Hamilton clearly believes he had a chance to beat Max Verstappen at the Circuit of the Americas. Thus, the Briton told the assembled press after the session: "I do think we would have been in a fighting position to fight with Max. We made our life a lot harder today [Sunday] than it probably needed to be."

The Mercedes driver was referring to his team's strategic decisions. Verstappen's early pit stop caught his front-runners by surprise. Mercedes may have been late in deciding for Hamilton to make the first pit stop. As a result, the Brit was off-set. In the closing stages, largely due to Verstappen's braking problems, Hamilton came very close to Verstappen and victory.

Hamilton is lenient on Mercedes

Despite his missed opportunity, Hamilton is lenient on the team, drawing the penance himself and recognising that the competition is particularly strong. Hamilton: "I think it was going to be hard anyway because these two are very quick. We struggled in our starts this weekend, so we lost ground more often than not. And I think in one of the pit stops, I think I might have been a bit long, which then made it harder for the guys, and then the stop wasn't that great overall."

Hamilton concluded: "There's lots of areas that we could have been better, but the positives are that we were at points matching them for pace, and to be only two seconds back afterwards at the end of the race, I think is a good sign."