Hamilton wouldn't have pitted if he knew British GP second was at risk

Lewis Hamilton has admitted he would not have made a second pit stop under the late safety car at the British Grand Prix had he known it would cost him track position to George Russell.

Hamilton questions Ferrari’s late call

The decision became decisive because the anticipated restart never arrived. Although marshals completed the recovery work at Stowe, the race ended behind the safety car amid confusion after backmarkers were permitted to unlap themselves on lap 51 of 52. Under the stated procedure, a full lap then had to be completed after that instruction from race control.

Asked whether he regretted stopping, Hamilton made clear the call would have been different with full information.

“The team asked me to stop. I assumed in stopping that we would be holding position,” Hamilton said. “If they told me, ‘You're stopping and you're losing position’, I wouldn't have done it.”

A race that unravelled early

The lost place compounded a difficult afternoon for Hamilton. He had launched past championship leader Kimi Antonelli at the start, but a movement before the lights went out earned him a five-second penalty.

“Pretty bad from the get-go. I jumped the start, which I have done very few times in the 380-odd races that I've done,” Hamilton said. “My hand just moved just like that. Don't really know where it went. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't even tell my hand to do it. But anyway, it happens.”

From there, Hamilton slipped away from Leclerc and came under pressure from Antonelli, who again found a way past him for track position after doing the same in Saturday’s sprint. Antonelli later dropped out of contention with a damaged wheel shield.

Hamilton also pointed to set-up direction as a key factor. He said Leclerc appeared to add more wing compared with qualifying, while he removed wing after feeling the car was oversteering with the differential settings. The result, he said, was heavy understeer early in the race.

“I just couldn't even turn the car until halfway kind of through that first stint,” Hamilton explained. “By then the gap was already huge. And then the five seconds at the stop, and then there's just one thing after the other.”