Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton says he is “grateful” to have only lost three points to Sebastian Vettel in the title race, as he finished third at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton played down Mercedes’ prospects of competing for victory in Monaco but the Briton qualified third, and maintained position in a processional race, behind Daniel Ricciardo and Vettel.
Hamilton retained his lead in the Drivers’ Championship, his advantage cut from 17 to 14 points, a situation that left him satisfied.
“I'm happy with the weekend – we were the third quickest team and we almost got second,” he said.
“I'm grateful to only have lost three points to Sebastian in the championship fight – I’ll take that and move forwards.
“It wasn't a really difficult race, we just had to take the tyres go a long way; I didn't think they were going to go as far as they did.
“It's a shame that the race is unfortunately not as exciting as the whole spectacle of Monaco, especially since through practice there's no place like it and the track is just epic in qualifying.”
Team-mate Valtteri Bottas maintained fifth position, having adopted a different strategy by fitting the Supersofts for his second stint, as opposed to the Ultrasofts.
“That's Monaco – sometimes a lot of things happen; sometimes nothing happens and you get a pretty uneventful race like today,” he said.
“I think we made the right choice with the Supersoft tyre for my second stint, it felt like it was working better than the Ultrasofts.
“The first stint was difficult because of the tyre drop-off, but the second stint was really good, I could put pressure on the cars ahead.
“I had more pace than the cars in front of me, and yet there was nothing I could do; even with the pace difference overtaking was impossible.
“We knew the weekend might be difficult and that's how it turned out to be, but we managed to do successful damage limitation.
“Qualifying P5 did not make that any easier for me and I don't think we could have done anything different today with the car we have.”
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