Hamilton admits he wouldn't have pitted had he known Russell would steal second at Silverstone

Lewis Hamilton admitted after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone that he would have stayed out under the late safety car had he known the pit stop would cost him second place to George Russell.

Hamilton had been running behind Ferrari team-mate and race winner Charles Leclerc when the safety car was deployed in the closing stages following Max Verstappen’s crash at Stowe. Both Ferraris pitted for fresh tyres in anticipation of a restart, but while Leclerc retained the lead, Hamilton was jumped by Russell, who chose to stay on track.

The race ultimately ended behind the safety car after backmarkers were permitted to unlap themselves on lap 51 of 52 — the regulations requiring a full lap to be completed after that instruction, leaving no time for a green-flag finish.

“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.”

The lost podium position was the final blow in a difficult afternoon for the seven-time champion. Hamilton had jumped championship leader Kimi Antonelli at the start, only to receive a five-second penalty for a jump start — a rare error he struggled to explain.

“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.”

Antonelli, who had also passed Hamilton in Saturday’s sprint race, worked his way back past the Ferrari driver for track position before eventually dropping out of contention with a damaged wheel shield.

Hamilton also pointed to a setup imbalance as a factor in his inability to match Leclerc’s pace. He explained that he had reduced downforce after noticing Leclerc had added wing compared to qualifying, only to find himself struggling with heavy understeer through the opening stint.

“I took out wing and then I had the biggest understeer at the beginning of the race,” Hamilton said. “I just couldn’t even turn the car until halfway through that first stint. I managed to start turning the car a little bit better with some diff changes, but by then the gap was already huge. And then the five-second [penalty].”

The result leaves Hamilton without a podium finish at his home circuit despite starting from a strong grid position, with the combination of the penalty, the setup call, and the late safety car conspiring against the nine-time Silverstone winner.