Lewis Hamilton reckons he 'would have been close' to race winner Max Verstappen in Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix had Mercedes made the right strategy call early on in the race.
From P13 on the grid, Hamilton eventually carried himself all the way up to sixth at the checkered flag in the tricky rain disrupted event that left drivers with no respite save for the 45-minute red flag interruption due to a massive downpour.
Shortly after the start, as the rain started to pummel on the opening lap, Mercedes opted to delay the stops of both Hamilton and George Russell.
It was unfortunately an ill-inspired decision by the Brackley squad's strategists and one that Hamilton rued given the strong pace of his W14 later on in the race, when conditions improved.
"In those conditions, if we'd made the right call, I had the pace to be challenging the top two," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
"I think we would have been challenging Max if I'm really honest.
"Particularly when we got to the dry, pace-wise I think we weren't terribly far off. I'm not saying that we'd beat them, but I think we would have been [close]."
Russell, who was pitted even later than Hamilton and dropped all the way down to P17 as a result, said that Mercedes had completely screwed up its weather information as the team was convinced that the rain would not last as long as it did.
"The race was over before it really got started," commented Russell who concluded his day a lowly 17th after suffering a contact with McLaren's Lando Norris after the race's restart that deflated a tyre on the Mercedes.
"I think the information we had regarding the weather was totally wrong and we thought the rain was going to last for a couple of minutes.
"It clearly lasted for longer, so that was a real shame. A podium was missed.
"We made a good recovery and then just a contact with Lando, an unfortunate racing incident, causing the puncture.
"So yeah, disappointing but good that we had a fast race car."
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