Mercedes had tough day: 'Best Hamilton could have achieved'

Verstappen took advantage of Hamilton

"The start itself was good," Mercedes engineer Andrew Shovlin is still positive. "Maybe Lewis' was too good, because that prevented him from taking advantage of Valtteri's slipstream." After that, however, things quickly went wrong. "Unfortunately Max was able to take that advantage and then found his way onto the racing line in turn one to take the lead." The misery was complete when Bottas also spun after colliding with Daniel Ricciardo.

"A difficult day," reads Shovlin's conclusion. "Most of what went wrong happened in the first twenty seconds, but in the end we didn't have the pace. With only one car left at the front of the race, second place was the best Lewis could have achieved." Bottas eventually crossed the line in fifteenth place.

Mercedes not where it hoped to be

Hamilton failed to put Verstappen under any pressure in the race and mainly had to watch Sergio Perez in his mirrors. "We had to react early at the first stop to protect ourselves from an undercut by Sergio, which meant we had a long stint to the finish". Perez came close to Hamilton in the closing stages, but the Briton managed to hold on to his second place.

With four races to go, Hamilton is nineteen points behind Verstappen. In the World Constructors' Championship, Mercedes is only one point ahead of Red Bull Racing. "We are not where we had hoped to be in the championship, but we will do everything we can to deliver something in these final races," Shovlin concluded.