Ferrari mulls what might have been as Hamilton concedes title hopes are over

Lewis Hamilton says there is no stopping Kimi Antonelli in the Formula 1 drivers’ championship this season after losing another 25 points to the Italian in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Antonelli won his second consecutive race – and eighth in total this season – after being able to take advantage of a Virtual Safety Car period and jump leader Lando Norris during the pit stop phase. With Hamilton retiring early on with a brake problem, the seven-time world champion says the writing is on the wall in both title races.

“I don’t think there’s any stopping him or Mercedes this year,” Hamilton told Sky Sports. “They’ve done a phenomenal job and they deserve it.”

Reflecting on his own short race, Hamilton came close to taking the lead off the line but saw Max Verstappen regain third place by cutting the second corner, before the Ferrari’s braking issues started to manifest themselves.

“I had a good start, I didn't see Max … And then I wasn't in the battle going down into Turn 5, but then when I went into Turn 5, I hit the brake, it started stopping OK, and then the pedal took a step and ended up … it wouldn't stop all of a sudden and ended up going wide, and that’s when I just tapped the barrier, but it didn't feel bad, like a bad touch.

“Then the pedal came back and it was fine for the next corners and things were looking OK, and then the pedal went long. That was it.

“I think we had a good car – we’ve had a pretty decent car this weekend and I think we will continue to try and improve it and I think we have better results coming in the future.”

Teammate Charles Leclerc finished fourth having been behind Hamilton for a spell in the early stages, but was pleased with how the lead car reacted when hit with reliability problems.

“He [let me go] very, very quickly obviously,” Leclerc said. “And I wasn't losing so much time because obviously with the brake problems he was kind of cutting the corners, so he didn't hold me up and it wouldn't have changed anything in my race.”

Leclerc led for much of the race, hoping for an interruption to be able to change tires without penalty, and showed impressive performance running long that highlighted Ferrari’s strengths.

“At the end of the day I think the pace was quite strong on the hard [tire],” he said. “On the soft at the end I couldn't really push for other reasons, but the hard stint was a good one. Where we are paying the price, it's our qualifying pace, because when you are starting further away then you get to the race and it's very difficult to make up those positions.”