‘I want to win’ – Hamilton explains frustrated radio messages in Dutch Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton has explained the emotions behind his radio messages during the middle phase of the Dutch Grand Prix, with the seven-time World Champion voicing his frustration after spending several laps stuck behind the sister Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton was hot on the tail of the other Scuderia car by Lap 43 of the 72-lap event and felt that he had more pace – but Leclerc seemed reluctant to let his team mate by, and also opted against a call to pit.

Leclerc dived into the pits one lap later which released Hamilton, but the Briton made his displeasure about the situation clear as he sarcastically radioed in: “Great waste of time there, guys.”

Hamilton also sounded disgruntled later in the race when asking the team if he would be pitting under a Virtual Safety Car phase, having commented, “Are you using me as a guinea pig?”, before the team called him in to pit. He went on to cross the line in fourth, despite chasing Mercedes’ George Russell for the final spot on the podium until the chequered flag.

Speaking after the Grand Prix, Hamilton was asked if his radio messages showed just how competitive the field is at the moment, with good results hanging on such decisions – leading him to draw comparison to the situation at the Silver Arrows, who opted to swap Russell and Kimi Antonelli during the closing stages.

“Yeah, I want to win,” he explained. “I'm here to win, and it is difficult when you see… when you're looking ahead and you see the two Mercedes drivers, they get the call and it's done and they execute straight away.

“They let Kimi by and let him get on with the race, and I was on a different strategy and it was not the same here. That's a little difficult, but we'll take it offline and when I go back now I'll speak to them about it.”

Hamilton admitted that he “gave it absolutely everything” during the race, and praised Ferrari for the performance of their car.

“I tell you, it's so close at the top, really, really hard battling,” the British driver said. “But I moved forwards – I think our Qualifying needed to be a bit better, but Mercedes are gaining like four tenths a second just on the straight, so that's really hard to capture everywhere else.

“It just shows we've got a really good car. If we can somehow improve our power unit and get a bit closer to them, which I trust in the team that they're working as hard as they can to do so. Hopefully we can be even closer and even more in the mix between those guys.”