Hamilton trashes Horner claim on Mercedes strategy at Silverstone

Lewis Hamilton laughed off Christian Horner's claim that Mercedes had got its strategy wrong in last weekend's British Grand Prix, insisting he turns a deaf ear to anything the Red Bull team boss has to say.

Hamilton enjoyed a strong race at Silverstone at the wheel of Mercedes' updated W13. The Briton battled among the front-runners and finished third behind Ferrari first-time winner Carlos Sainz and Red Bull's Sergio Perez.

But Horner reckoned after the race that Hamilton could have pulled off a win if Mercedes had opted to put the seven-time world champion on a set of soft tyres rather than on the hard compound for his second stint.

"I was actually surprised that Lewis, with the amount of laps to go, and the degradation that he's shown, didn't take a soft," said the red Bull chief at the time.

"He went onto the hard tyre on lap 33 and I actually thought he was going to go on to the soft, because that would have made it much easier for him to make the offset in grip."

Asked for his view on Horner's comment and whether Mercedes had indeed made a mistake, Hamilton rubbished the claim and its author.

"I don’t really care! I don’t pay much attention to what is said by that guy," Hamilton said.

"From our knowledge, from what I was told, from our experience, the tyres were not going to go the distance. They were definitely quicker for the first part but there was huge degradation on other cars that we had seen.

"Did we get it perfect? Who knows. But I think we made the right decision.

“No one else could do the stint length that I did on the medium. I don’t know if anyone did that length and had that performance and pace at the end on that tyre.

"The question is: could I have kept going and then shortened my soft tyre run? But in hindsight it’s always positive."

• Read also: Mercedes 'proud' of Russell's display of character at Silverstone

Assessing Mercedes' productive Sunday in Britain, Hamilton believes his team's performance points to a steady trend higher for the Brackley squad and to a moment in time this season where its drivers will be competing on merit for a race win.

"It was really positive for us as a team to start to see a little bit of consistency, particularly on my side, and to see us making progress," he said.

"A long way back, earlier this year, I definitely wasn’t sure that we’d get a win in this car.

"That was definitely not the way we like to think but it was that feeling that ‘Jesus, there’s a long, long way to catch everyone up’. But definitely hugely encouraging.

"For a long, long time, we would make changes and not see it do what it says it was going to do and improve the car. It was a good step in Barcelona but then we had several difficult races following it.

"Then we just had these last two races which were quite strong and that’s really encouraging us in the right direction and that there really is potential in the car.

"With a little bit more digging and a little more hard work, hopefully we can get closer to winning a race, so I truly believe we can win a race win this year."

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