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Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has noted how he would love more of a competition with rivals Red Bull on track, but said it is harder for them because they currently do not have two drivers performing at the front of the grid.
Max Verstappen once again finished in third behind the two Mercedes during yesterday's Belgian Grand Prix, but teammate Alexander Albon could only manage a sixth-place finish.
Hamilton said how the scenario at Red Bull reminded him of his early days at McLaren and how he could never benefit from team strategy because his teammate, Heikki Kovalainen at the time, was never close enough to the battle for the lead.
Hamilton also said how he was tired of drivers having to back off at the end of each race to save tyres and affirmed he would love if it would be possible to push harder towards the end rather than slow down to manage the tyres.
"Well what you got to look at with the Red Bull is that I think they've got a really good car, and I think that people downplay it but they've got a really, really strong car and Max is doing a great job with it as always," Hamilton explained.
"Unfortunately, both drivers aren't there like me and Valtteri are there. That makes it harder for them. I experienced it many years ago when i was at McLaren.
"I was the driver that was always at the front and didn't have a teammate backing up so equally don't get the constructors points, but then can't play strategy on the cars you're racing against.
"So they've got that and he's racing on his own and today, its really tyres and everybody was doing a one-stop and this whole one-stop thing is boring. At the end of the day, we are all just managing out there and this is not racing.
"We are all managing at the end, everyone's backing off so the tyres don't deflate, blowup, whatever, we have no idea what they were going to do. I was worried they were going to do the same as Silverstone so I backed off but maybe it would have been fine."
"Really, I would love to have more of a fight but that's not on me, we just have to keep doing what we are doing."
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
geee Hammy cheers, nobody else noticed!