Hamilton hopes for “sick” battle with Verstappen and Alonso

Lewis Hamilton finished on the podium for the second time in a row, and hopes this can give an edge in Mercedes’ fightback against Red Bull and Aston Martin. The British world champion also underlined what this challenge means to him, and talked about how his current car feels like as well.

"It's been great to be on the podium two races in a row. It's really fantastic for us," said Hamilton at the post-race press conference. "We were also running fourth in Monaco, so we're definitely getting closer. It's going to be a battle of development, I guess, over the rest of the season. I reckon Max's team are already working on next year's car, so we need to take our eye a little bit off the ball and focus on next year also."

The Mercedes driver also added that the battle his team is now facing is not frustrating, but hopes their work will continue to pay off in the future. "It's not a frustration anymore, if it ever was. There's nothing I can do about their amazing performance. (...) It's not easy with the regulations to find the amount of performance that they have advantage-wise. As I said, I look forward to, I'm happy to firstly be back in the mix and I'm just hoping at some stage we can have a little bit more level so we can get back to some of the good races we had back in 2021. And to have all three of us in a super tight battle would be sick," the Briton continued.

What does it feel like to drive a Mercedes?

Hamilton also shared his thoughts what his current Mercedes car feels like on the track. "It doesn't feel a huge difference to the beginning of the year. There are some elements of the car which do feel different, and obviously with the upgrade. But yeah, it's just that we just have a little bit more downforce in the car."

"It's definitely not the car that, characteristic-wise, the car that's going to be able to beat the Red Bull just yet. And so we've got to work on that. I mean, for example, it was very bumpy, this track, and I think everyone was struggling. But our car is very stiff.  But I think we're all struggling with the stiffness of our cars," the Mercedes driver expanded on the qualities of his car.