F1 News
Windsor disappointed with Russell's podium: 'I feel sorry for Hamilton'
The Canadian Grand Prix was a strong weekend for the Mercedes drivers, after George Russell started on pole position and finished on the podium. Lewis Hamilton started in seventh. Towards the end of the race though, it looked like Hamilton would be making an appearance on the podium until he was overtaken by his teammate. Peter Windsor has shared in his latest YouTube video that he blames the team, and feels 'very sorry' for the seven-time world champion.
At the start of the race, there was a battle between Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who started ahead of him. As Windsor said: "I felt very sorry for Lewis Hamilton at the end of the race because he'd got held up a lot by Fernando Alonso early on when it was wet and he was stuck behind Fernando." In the end, Hamilton was able to pass the Aston Martin driver after a pitstop. The Mercedes driver was then able to progress and be within contention of a podium. Nevertheless, this didn't materialise for Hamilton.
'It's such a shame for Lewis'
"Lewis then wanted to come in for tyres, but there's no many mediums," Windsor explained. "And I couldn't believe actually the conversation on the radio of Lewis saying, well, can't I go to softs? They said, well, we don't think the softs are going to last, Lewis. Well, why can't I have mediums? Well, we haven't got any left. You'd think they would have sorted that out before the race. You'd think they would know, wouldn't you, if they got how many sets of tyres they got left." Hamilton was then left to race on hard tyres. After the pitstop, the Mercedes driver was ahead of his teammate due to a mistake Russell had made at the second chicane.
Nonetheless, Russell was able to reclaim third position and score a podium, which Windsor believes was unfair. For the journalist, he argues Hamilton lost out on a podium finish just because his team did not have any medium tyres available. "It's such a shame for Lewis, because he was looking really good, and he could have been third in that race. And he got beaten, because he'd run out of mediums," said Windsor. "
The upside was that the hard tyres were actually quite good. And guess who got the fastest lap? Lewis Hamilton. But yeah, Lewis put up a bit of a fight as well. I was thinking, there's no way in the world Lewis is going to get passed by George here. But he did," he concluded. With Hamilton finishing fourth, he remains behind Russell in the Drivers' Championship by 14 points.