Mercedes had another difficult weekend at Monza, where Ferrari was clearly ahead and the W14 was the third fastest car.
George Russell and Hamilton eventually finished fifth and sixth as they showed an obvious top speed handicap.
Hamilton’s life has been complicated by a few difficult qualifying sessions of late, with the seven-time champion starting just 13th at Zandvoort and eighth at Monza.
While he moved up the rankings both times and scored decent points, his team was not in the lead in the pursuit of leaders Red Bull.
“Racing is pretty easy for me,” he said. “I just need to do better in qualifying, so it’s not such a difficult day.”
“And just live with the car we have at the moment. Today is the third fastest car, and of course that is painful for all of us. We wish we were faster. But we’re just counting down the days until February.”
For the second year in a row, Hamilton opted for a staggered starting tire strategy at Monza, and he was only one of three drivers to opt for hard tires.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W14
Photo by: Erik Junius
After the Mediums stopped surprisingly early on lap 27, he questioned the decision as he had expected to stay out for another eight laps.
He also made it clear that he had doubts about getting his medium tires to the finish without another stop, saying at one point: “Now we’re screwed, I don’t know how these tires are going to hold up.”
In the end he managed the tires well and fought his way past Fernando Alonso, Oscar Piastri – with whom he was in contact -, Lando Norris and Alex Albon en route to a top-six finish.
“I definitely wasn’t upset,” he said when asked about the radio messages. “I should have just gotten to lap 35, but the pace didn’t feel great at that point. But they stopped me.”
“On the lap I pitted, they said I would finish and then suddenly they boxed me. So I was a bit confused, that’s all. And then I was definitely afraid that maybe I wouldn’t make it to the end.
“The gap between me and the McLarens was big, I fell behind an Aston. So at that point I didn’t know what my trajectory would be. But I took care of the tires, closed the gap and had it. “Good fight.”
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