- Austrian GP - Race
Pit stop delays frustrate Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton says his slower pit stops made the tough task of beating Nico Rosberg even more difficult after battling from ninth on the grid to second in Austria.
A stunning first lap, in which he jumped to fourth, brought Hamilton into contention for victory, but he lost valuable time relative to Rosberg during both pit stops - with the gap between both in the box roughly 1.9s in the German's favour. That eventually accounted for the final gap between the two and Hamilton said he needs to work out the problem and concedes he may in fact be the culprit.
"They haven't yet," Hamilton said when asked if the team had explained his pit stop delays. "I didn't know it was that much time, but they didn't feel that fast. Obviously it's frustrating when you lose time, because you are constantly doing everything you can to gain a tenth here, a tenth there, so when you lose a chunk, like two seconds over the pit stops, it's tough.
"I have to have a look at the feedback, just see what the team say about the stops. Maybe my positioning is not right, in that situation you are just pushing. At least we haven't made any mistakes, let's step back and look at it like that, to get so many one-two's has been incredible this year. I'm hoping in the future I won't have those problems."
Hamilton's start off the line saw him jump between Kimi Raikkonen and Daniil Kvyat, before peeling past the likes of Fernando Alonso to cross the line looking at Rosberg's gearbox in fourth, leaving him wondering what might have been after his costly spin in qualifying saw him start ninth.
"It was a good start, we've been working very hard on our start throughout the years. It's probably one of the best starts I've ever had really. I was positioning the car in the right places. If I'd started where I should have started [it would have been better] but it was damage limitations, to get from ninth to second and ending up pressuring Nico shows the pace I had this weekend."
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