Lewis Hamilton has called on Mercedes to make improvements in all areas after an angry Austrian Grand Prix saw his 33-race finishing streak end.
The world champion looked in a strong position to secure his second win in a week at the Red Bull Ring, after claiming the lead into Turn 1 and then pulled away from the chasing pack in the early laps.
However, when teammate Valtteri Bottas retired with a hydraulics problem, a strategic error not to pit under the subsequent Virtual Safety Car while both Red Bull and Ferrari did with their two cars, left the Briton down in fourth after his own stop.
An irate Hamilton let his feelings be known over the radio before also venting frustration after he later retired with a fuel pressure problem.
“I’m not going to lie, all areas we are going to have to work on,” he declared to Channel 4. “The car has been great all weekend. We were the quickest and to have two different faults on each car, which is very unusual but we really can’t throw away points.
“We’ve [also] got to find a bulletproof method to move forward for strategy. If our car was still going it was an easy win for us.
“We were comfortably ahead but we will work on it and will try to re-evaluate to come back stronger for the next race.”
Mercedes has already played down suggestions the failures were linked to the new power unit which was introduced in France, one race after it was delayed in Canada, or to the aero upgrades which included new-look sidepods and bargeboards.
Ahead of the final leg of Formula 1’s current triple-header this weekend, which is also Hamilton’s home race at the British Grand Prix, the world champion maintains trust in his team.
“I feel fine about it. It is what it is,” he told Sky Sports. “There’s nothing I can do about it, and all we do is move forward.
“I’m looking forward to getting the car back and trying to understand what the problem is, and I know the guys will be working hard to rectify it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“[It is] an unfortunate day. Everyone in the team is going to be feeling the pain but we’ve had such great reliability for so many years,” he added.
“This is definitely the worst weekend I can remember us having for a long, long time but I have every confidence in my team.”
