RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Lewis Hamilton said he will seek an explanation from Ferrari about the team’s strategy at Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix which left him ruing a “missed opportunity” in his bid for a record eighth world championship.
As Lando Norris cashed in on McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri’s bizarre collision with a backmarker to secure the first win of his title defence, Hamilton finished fifth in a Ferrari which undoubtedly had the speed to carry him to victory.
Kimi Antonelli, the Italian teenager he is attempting to hunt down in the standings, started two places behind Hamilton in a Mercedes which has been so dominant all season but was out of sorts at the Hungaroring.
However, Antonelli still managed to cross the line two places ahead of Hamilton in third to extend his title advantage over the British driver from 45 points to 50.
Hamilton was aggrieved that a “communication error” contributed to him blocking Oscar Piastri in qualifying and serve a three-place grid drop from second to fifth.
Hamilton was then running in second place in Sunday’s race when Ferrari elected to surrender track position – at a venue where overtaking had proved largely impossible – by pitting their driver for a third time during a late Virtual Safety Car period.
He was gazumped by Max Verstappen and Antonelli, and was then hit with a five-second penalty for pit-lane speeding, dropping him behind team-mate Charles Leclerc and a subsequent 11-point championship swing.
In an emotive post after qualifying, Hamilton stressed how “every point counts”. And when asked after Sunday’s race whether he had missed an opportunity in the title race, he replied: “Yes. I’m not really sure why we stopped at the end.
“I got the call right at the pit-lane entry and I didn’t have time to debate it. You put your faith in the team.
“I would never have stopped if it meant I’d give up track position. We should have stayed out. I need to go and see why the team pulled me in.
“We probably would have lost out to Max because he was on fresher tyres. But I may have been able to hold on to second. We’ve lost a whole bunch of points. It was pretty bad, pretty frustrating.”
In his haste to emerge from his third stop ahead of Antonelli, Hamilton broke the 80 kilometre per hour (kph) limit by just 0.1 kph.
It marked his fourth penalty across the three most recent rounds with his two sanctions this weekend coming after a false start at Silverstone and a collision with George Russell in Belgium. Hamilton said over the radio that the stewards were “handing out penalties like crazy”.
He continued: “Silverstone was my fault at the start. At the last race, even the driver I collided with said it was a racing incident, and they gave me a penalty. That was not needed. And that’s cost me a lot of points.
“Yesterday was unfortunate. I take responsibility, I should have looked in my mirrors. It was a communication error.
“I will work hard to come back, and reset. I have to make sure I don’t give them a reason to give me any more penalties.”
The sport heads for a three-week summer shutdown before the next round in the Netherlands on August 23 – the first of 12 scheduled races still remaining.
And Hamilton, 41, concluded: “We have to keep on pushing. From my side, the second half is usually a much stronger period for me, so I will take this time to come back stronger, fitter and better.”
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