Lewis Hamilton opens up on Ferrari 'frustration' after team-mate battle ruins podium chances

Lewis Hamilton has continued to show his frustration at Ferrari's strategy decisions at Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix, claiming that his team cost him a podium finish.

The seven-time world champion ended up finishing fourth after spending the last handful of laps scrambling all over the back of George Russell's Mercedes – a position he believes he wouldn't have been in if Ferrari hadn't let Charles Leclerc hold him up earlier in the race.

An earlier decision to leave Hamilton out longer than his team-mate led to him catching the sister Ferrari on fresher tyres later in the race, with a significant pace advantage. Leclerc stayed planted in front of his veteran team-mate though, slowing Hamilton up for multiple laps before being called into the pits to set the Brit free.

Hamilton was audibly furious at the roadblock on team radio, repeatedly asking for Leclerc to be told to let him past, and telling the team after the chequered flag: "We weren’t unlucky. We lost time earlier on and that cost us P3."

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Hamilton: Today was frustrating for me

He appeared to have cooled off somewhat by the time he talked to Sky Sports, but still clearly had a message to get across.

"Firstly," he said, "the guys in the garage did a fantastic job. Pit stops, strategy was generally very, very good. The car felt awesome and they have continued to work so hard.

"We brought a bit of an upgrade here. We are just chipping away at it all the time. This first half of the season we have been losing three to five tenths on the straight depending on which track we go to and that's a hard deficit to overcome just through the corners. But we are close. 

"But today was definitely frustrating for me. I'm here to win and I really believe that this team can win. We couldn't win this race but to win championships you have to pick up every point and the last few races have been difficult with penalties and stuff and then, today, I lost several seconds behind Charles which I think ultimately would have made the difference at the end.

"But we will take it offline. My goal is to try and lead this team to the championship and we've got some work to do for sure."

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