"We underperformed as a team all weekend from the get-go and we'll just put our focus on to the next race," says Hamilton after difficult race ends with seventh place and loss of the world championship lead to Verstappen
Sunday 23 May 2021 22:30, UK
Lewis Hamilton conceded Mercedes "underperformed as a team all weekend" after a tough Monaco GP which saw him lose the lead of the world championship to Max Verstappen for the first time this season.
On a rare off-weekend for F1's seven-time champions in which they struggled for tyre temperatures with their car, Mercedes were overhauled by Red Bull in both title races with Hamilton finishing seventh and Valtteri Bottas dropping out after a pit-stop malfunction.
Hamilton had qualified on row four - although was promoted to sixth in the order when original polesitter Charles Leclerc dropped out before the race - but hopes of moving up the order at the traditional single round of pit stops in Monaco evaporated when Mercedes' undercut attempt on Pierre Gasly failed to produce a breakthrough.
Not only did the AlphaTauri hold position when Gasly pitted a lap later, Hamilton soon lost positions to the longer-running Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Perez and was shuffled into seventh.
Asked for his reaction to the pit stop, Hamilton told Sky Sports F1: "I don't really have a reaction to it.
"We do all our talking in the background and we'll work together and try to come out of this stronger. We underperformed as a team all weekend from the get-go and we'll just put our focus on to the next race.
"Congratulations to Max and his team, they did a great job."
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said that "with Lewis we just didn't have the pace in the car".
"The undercut looked like the only feasible way of clearing Gasly with the tyre warm-up and just the gap that he had before, the 1-1.5s, was sufficient for him to stay ahead," he said.
"There wasn't any mistake, the out lap was good, the pit stop was ok, it just wasn't enough."
In a reflective social media post on Sunday evening, Hamilton said "things could be so much worse" and that it is "days like this we learn the most and grow the most".
"Each and every person in this team is feeling it and we'll do what we have always done," he added. "Unite and come back and fight!"
