Lewis Hamilton has said that Mercedes should walk away happy from the 2023 Monaco GP after he finished fourth after qualifying sixth in a tricky race.
Hamilton managed to leapfrog the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in the pitstops and stayed ahead of teammate George Russell to claim fourth.
Speaking to the media after the race, the seven-time champion said the team had done a good job in challenging conditions in Monte Carlo, after rain halfway through the race made the track slippery for drivers in the run to the flag.
“It was a good result, and an improvement overall, as a team, I think we’ve stepped forward and to get a positive result in such a tricky race like this today, I think it’s a pretty good result,” Hamilton told select members of the press, including Total-Motorsport.com.
“The team did a really solid job today with strategy and to leapfrog the Ferraris.”
Tiptoeing around
Hamilton said it was an extremely difficult task to keep the car on track in the wet conditions, with the intermediate tyres proving challenging to heat up on the Mercedes.
“There is no word to explain how difficult it was. And I think from my side I couldn’t get temperature into my intermediate tyres, so I was tiptoeing,” Hamilton said.
“I think our crossover was good, I just lost ground when I had to stop, so I was disappointed and put me at a bit of a disadvantage. But no mistakes and I kept it on track, which is good.”
