Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes “cannot afford” a repeat of its Monaco Grand Prix slump after he relinquished the Formula 1 title lead to Max Verstappen.
Verstappen dominated the race from a net pole position, following Charles Leclerc’s pre-race driveshaft failure, while Hamilton held only sixth after his Q3 struggles.
Mercedes opted for the undercut, in a bid to jump Pierre Gasly, but the strategy backfired as Hamilton was overhauled by Sergio Perez and Sebastian Vettel.
Hamilton trailed home only seventh, capturing an extra point by setting the fastest lap, though slipped four points behind Verstappen in the title battle following the Dutchman’s victory.
“I told you at the beginning [of the season] they’ve got a championship-winning car, and they’re going to be very hard to beat,” said Hamilton.
“I’ve been serious about it all year, these races, and we’ve won races which we shouldn’t have won, like in Bahrain, but it’s not over.
“There’s a long, long way to go, we can’t afford another weekend like this.
“But I’m grateful I finished and got some points, fastest lap, every point you get on a bad weekend like this can hopefully count towards something at the end [of the season].”
Hamilton stressed that he and Mercedes had “not done a good enough job” throughout the weekend and will drill down into the details to understand its predicament.
“On the last races we’ve generally been good on tyres but this one particularly we’ve been weak,” he said.
“That’s an area we need to understand and rectify for the future.
“This has never generally been a track for us, we have the longest car, it’s like a bus to turn through the corners, it’s not as nimble on a small track like this but it’s great elsewhere. There are things that don’t work here which bode well for the other circuits.
“We’ve had some good conversations through the weekend, but it’s not good enough from all of us, we win and lose as a team, and collectively it’s not a good job from all of us, across the board, and we don’t take it lightly.
“There’s no point getting all depressed, we have to look at data and figure out why we’re in this position, we’ll be in calls over these next days when we get analysis.”
