Hamilton: Five seconds for Vettel is too small a penalty

Lewis Hamilton stated that he felt for team-mate Valtteri Bottas after his collision with Sebastian Vettel on the first lap of the French Grand Prix left both men at the back of the grid, adding that the five-second penalty incurred by the German proved 'really costly' to Mercedes.

Vettel accepted responsibility for the incident which left his Ferrari with a damaged nose and Bottas with a puncture, leading to both men being forced to cut their way through the grid to make their way back to the points.

Hamilton was delighted with his own personal weekend, though added that he felt Mercedes should have had a one-two and that the punishment given to Vettel for thrwarting that didn't seem correct.

He said to Sky Sports: "Five seconds? You do your whole weekend prepping and then that happens. It's really costly for a team championship and Ferrari really shouldn't have come out [of this weekend] with more points than us.

"[The corner] It's not challenging for a four-time world champion. He was pretty close to me for a bit and I don't know what happened. It looks odd that he backed off for the corner then ran straight into him."

Turning attention to his own performance, Hamilton said that he never felt as if he was in any trouble after his final pit stop, and took time to pay tribute to the Mercedes garage for the way in which they fine-tuned the car for the weekend.

He added: "I had the race in the bag for a long time. If I can push a bit more and turn the engine down I try to do that. After my stop I was never really challenged pace-wise.

"[It's] Just one step at a time. But it's been such a great weekend, all the hard work getting the upgrades here, right now, guys will be working on the analysis and it's incredible teamwork this weekend.