Lewis Hamilton, the defending world champion could only finish in seventh on what was a poor weekend at Monaco for Mercedes.
Follow Us
Lewis Hamilton was in no mood to mince words after the Monaco GP 2021. The defending world champion could only finish in seventh on what was a poor weekend for Mercedes. Teammate Valtteri Bottas was forced into retirement due to a cross-threaded wheel nut in his pit stop. To top things off, the normally canny strategies of the Mercedes F1 team didn’t pay off. And Hamilton admitted he was ‘surprised’ at how poor they were all weekend.
“We lost a lot of points today for a really, really poor performance from the team,” said Hamilton. “I’m definitely a little bit surprised by it, but these things are sent to try us.”
“Three places it cost us. I don’t really have a reaction to it. I think we do all our talking in the background and we’ll work together and try and come out of this stronger.
“We underperformed as a team all weekend from the get-go so we’ll just put our focus onto the next race.”
The next race, however, is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. And Baku, much like Monte Carlo, is a street circuit. And while the two circuits are different in nature, Hamilton is aware they could face a struggle there too.
“We’ll look internally, have some good discussions and come back stronger the next race. We obviously have some weak points with our car.
“This race and the next race will be just as tough I think. For us, at this cold circuit it’s really hard to get the tyres working.
“Baku’s another street circuit, another one that’s a very cold, very smooth circuit. So another one that we could struggle at, similar to here.
“So we’re just going to have to work and try and see how we can minimise that loss. We’ve got a good battle on our hands.”
The seventh-placed finish saw Hamilton concede his lead in the world driver’s championship to Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver led from start to finish, barely breaking a sweat en route to his maiden Monaco win.
Red Bull are also now ahead of Mercedes in the constructor’s championship.
