Lewis Hamilton believes he can no longer catch Kimi Antonelli in the F1 world championship race after a day of disappointment at the Italian Grand Prix.
Hamilton had high hopes of a strong showing at Ferrari’s home race but dropped down the order from fourth on lap one after a tangle with his teammate Charles Leclerc, who then crashed out a lap later.
The Briton recovered to fourth but was then short of pace after his team opted not to pit him during a mid-race VSC [virtual safety car] period and ultimately finished sixth – behind both McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli claimed a sensational victory from 19th on the grid to extend his mighty lead in the standings. Hamilton now trails the 20-year-old Italian by 76 points with 10 rounds remaining.
Asked about Ferrari opting not to prioritise Hamilton over Leclerc at the start, the 41-year-old replied: “It’s too far past for that already. Too late for that now.
“I lost a lot of points today; they’re [Mercedes] just ahead. We’ll do our best to keep pushing the rest of the seaosn. But they’re out ahead now.”
Hamilton found it difficult to hide his frustration, with his ambitions to claim a record-breaking eighth title suffering a seismic blow at the Scuderia’s home event.
“One of the harder ones to swallow today, was hoping for more,” he said. But yeah… I gave it absolutely everything; I just didn’t have the speeds on the straights, was a sitting duck.
open image in gallery“We’ll look internally into what we could have done better, we probably should have been on the hard tyre but we also had to be overtaking people. I thought they’d [pit] stop us, they didn’t, and I ran out of tyres.”
On his cool-down lap post-race, Hamilton added while speaking to his team: “That one hurts. Definitely hurts, but thank you for continuing to show up and great job all weekend guys, in the garage as always.
“The tifosi: thanking you for turning out and giving us your love.”
Russell now trails his teammate Antonelli by 66 points, with the Italian edging ever closer to becoming the youngest-ever champion in Formula 1 history.
The next race is the Spanish Grand Prix at a brand-new street circuit in Madrid next week.