Lewis Hamilton rues Italian GP ‘missed opportunity’ as comfort struggles continue

Lewis Hamilton has admitted he’s still “not 100 per cent comfortable” when driving for Ferrari despite an encouraging Italian Grand Prix.

Hamilton recovered from his five-place grid penalty, which meant he started the race from 10th, to finish sixth.

The seven-time world champion’s pace was encouraging throughout the weekend, often within a tenth of teammate Charles Leclerc.

However, Ferrari were still well behind Red Bull and McLaren’s pace, meaning Leclerc had to settle for fourth.

When speaking to reporters after the race on Sunday, Hamilton was satisfied with his weekend overall, stressing that he’s now more confident behind the wheel of the SF-25.

“I think overall our performance was fairly decent,” Hamilton said.

“We obviously don’t have the pace of the cars much further ahead, so competing for the top three is off the cards for a while, but we keep pushing and trying to extract more.

“This weekend built a lot on my confidence with the car, [but] definitely I’m still not 100% comfortable in the car.”

Hamilton spots 'missed opportunity’ at Monza

After an impressive opening part of the race, Hamilton found himself in sixth, within two seconds of George Russell ahead.

Russell was the first driver out of the leading group to pit for hard tyres.

The other five – Max Verstappen, the two McLarens and the two Ferraris – extended their first stint.

When Hamilton stopped, he rejoined behind Russell, albeit on fresher hard tyres.

Hamilton believes in hindsight Ferrari had the chance to undercut Russell to finish fifth.

“I’m sure we didn’t have the pace of the McLarens and the Red Bulls,” Hamilton added.

“But I definitely think Charles and I, if we were together, we could have had a strong race in perhaps keeping up with, maybe trying to keep up more with the guys further ahead.

“I really don’t know. I just think they were just too fast, the guys further ahead, but I definitely think we would have been fifth, fourth.

“I had a really good start – I had to lift just after because it was such a good start – and then I got kind of squeezed in between two cars. But other than that I positioned the car really nicely and I think made my way forwards, and I think I could have got fifth today.

“I think I was 1.5 seconds behind George, we should have tried to undercut him. But we missed that opportunity, then I was miles behind after that.”