Lewis Hamilton has delivered an x-rated verdict after a frustrating Dutch Grand Prix weekend for Mercedes.
The Mercedes driver was awarded a three-place grid penalty for impeding Sergio Perez in qualifying, with the incident impacting Hamilton’s performance for the rest of the session.
Hamilton failed to set a time fast enough to get out of Q2, and started P14 on the grid after his penalty was applied.
Despite the poor starting position, the Brit managed to battle his way into the top ten on a two stop strategy.
Lewis Hamilton has a weekend to forget in Zandvoort
Hamilton finished the race in P8, just behind his team-mate George Russell, but the 39-year-old believed he could have achieved more this weekend.
“If I just qualified, like I should have qualified if I didn’t have a problem, I think I had the pace today to definitely be in the top five,” Hamilton said to the media including GPFans.
“If I started fourth, I would have finished fourth. I was surprised when I drove through and saw the Ferraris in P3.”
“We made a big set up change for FP3 but then it was wet so we didn’t get to test it. Today I took out a bunch of wing to balance it and it was fine.”
The champion also revealed how difficult it was to execute the two stop strategy and provided an x-rated assessment of his weekend.
“I had a lot of fun today. I started on the soft tyre. I think it was a very good tyre. I felt much better than my medium tyre. The hard tyre was pretty decent.
“It was really difficult to see what I needed to do, maybe push for it, but I was on a two stop, so trying to use up the tyre, but I also wasn’t sure whether or not we might possibly go for one [stop].
“Probably, if I’d done one stop and managed to manage a little bit better, we could have done a one, maybe finish one spot ahead.
“I look forward to next weekend because I had a s**** weekend this weekend.”
