Lewis Hamilton calls out Mercedes and fires warning to Verstappen after Dutch GP

Lewis Hamilton warned Max Verstappen that he had the pace to challenge him at the Dutch Grand Prix – but called out his Mercedes team for making the wrong strategy calls that disrupted his race.

Hamilton started in P13 after a nightmare qualifying session. The Brit took a gamble at the start of the race, putting on the more durable medium tyres, while those around him opted for softs. His strategy was completely thrown out of the window when rain fell after just a few laps.

Most drivers pitted for the intermediate tyres but Mercedes kept both of their men out on track as they predicted the downpour would be over within a couple of minutes. They got that completely wrong and boxed their drivers way too late, dropping them both to near the bottom of the pack.

From there, Hamilton fought his way to a sixth-placed finish. And team-mate George Russell was on for a seventh place until he suffered a late puncture after making contact with Lando Norris.

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“I feel really good. I didn’t really know how today was going to go,” Hamilton told Sky Sports. “I sat there last night wrecking my brain. Where did we go wrong? How did we end up in this position? Then I was just working on how I could progress this morning.

“I was the only one on the medium tyre. I wanted to be off-set to the people around me but not everyone on the grid. When that rain then came out, we as a team made the wrong decision. Ultimately it was the team’s call and we paid the price for that.

“We came out last and then we were just chasing. I think it was a really good example of when you fall or stumble to get back up and keep trying. Every time I had to pit I came out behind and I kept chasing and it was not that easy to do.”

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Hamilton felt he had the pace to challenge race winner Verstappen and second-placed Fernando Alonso. He added: “I think today I had the pace, in the conditions and if we made the right call, I had the pace to challenge the top two. I think we would have been challenging, particularly when we got to the dry.

“I’m not saying we would beat them but it is nice if you think that way.”

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