• Korean Grand Prix

Alonso and I deserve better - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton struggled with tyre wear in Korea © Getty Images

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Lewis Hamilton says he and Fernando Alonso "are of a higher calibre" after finishing fifth and sixth respectively in the Korean Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel took his fourth victory in a row as Hamilton and Alonso battled over fifth place behind Nico Hulkenberg for a number of laps towards the end of the race. As Vettel moved within a victory of a fourth consecutive world championship, Hamilton said it's frustrating to not be able to fight with him at the front.

"It's strange you know?" Hamilton said. "Me and Fernando in fifth and sixth at the end having our own little race, yet we are of a higher calibre than that. We should be further ahead fighting with the world champions at the front and with Sebastian.

"It was fun battling with Fernando but a disappointing race for us. We obviously would have liked to have finished higher; I think we deserved more as a team but things just didn't go our way today."

Hamilton struggled with his front right tyre in the second stint and admitted it had proved costly as he ended up failing to pass Hulkenberg late on.

"The car was feeling OK, it's just the right front was just destroyed all of a sudden at one point. They said I might go through the graining phase but there was no graining, it was just dead. The tyre was losing temperature and I was locking up and couldn't get round the corner, so it was a very difficult 10 or 15 laps I had to do on that tyre and that's really what lost us so much ground. Then stuck behind a Sauber; jeez, the traction he had was incredible."

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