Mercedes "hoped for better" in Spa despite double podium!
F1 News
Mercedes chief strategist James Allison admitted that the team were looking for more during the Belgian Grand Prix, despite Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas finishing second and third respectively.
Charles Leclerc won the race, but was chased down in the last few laps by a rampant Hamilton, who would have had a chance for the win with just a few more laps.
However, he added that it would be silly for Mercedes to be disappointed with a double podium at a track where Ferrari were clearly on top.
He said in his debrief: “We’d hoped for better but it would be churlish not to be happy with a very solid second and third place and all the points that they bring for us.
“Charles was out of touch yesterday in Qualifying and, although it looked for a short while as if we would have him in our clutches today, he was just a bit too good over the race for us over the race distance.
“There were a lot of reasons to be happy about our car performance today: it ran nicely on its tyres, with less degradation than our major competitors and performed strongly through the corners.
“So, looking forward from here to the circuits that are ahead of us, Monza is not going to be an easy one but the tracks after that we can look forward with a degree of confidence.”