Hamilton praises Mercedes’ ‘good step forward’ in Monaco

Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes made “a good step forward” with its car at the Monaco Grand Prix after both drivers finished in the top five.

Mercedes brought a major upgrade to Monaco that should have been introduced in Imola last weekend, and insisted it would learn little about it on the tight street circuit. However, with team principal Toto Wolff stating the drivers were happier with the car’s handling during the race weekend, after climbing from fifth to fourth Hamilton was encouraged by the performance shown.

“Yes, it’s a good result,” Hamilton said. “Good improvement, overall, as a team I feel we made a good step forward, to finish fourth and fifth in such a tricky race like this one was today, I think it’s a great result. The team did a really great job today with strategy, and I think to get the leapfrog on the Ferrari it’s awesome.

“It feels like the car has progressed -- it has moved forwards. I think next week we’ll get a much better view, in a place where we can really push, with medium- and high-speed corners, but I think that, overall, it has been a really positive weekend for us.”

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Hamilton’s positive feeling was also partly due to the need to handle the car in such tricky conditions when heavy rain fell, putting pressure on Esteban Ocon for the final podium spot.

“It was very, very bad. There’s really no word to describe how difficult it was, and I think that, from my side, I couldn’t get the temperature into the intermediate tires, so I was just tiptoeing. I think our crossover was good, it’s just that I lost ground to everyone when I had to stop, so we were at a bit of a disadvantage there and it just made it a little bit tricker, but no mistakes, kept it on track.

“For me, I felt it was very, very twitchy when my tires weren’t working, so it was like I was on ice! But then, after some time, the tires started to work, and it started to be fine. I was so close to going off, crashing and having a big shunt, but it was awesome.”