Lewis Hamilton has ‘so much hope’ for Mercedes season after podium finish at Canadian Grand Prix

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton said his podium place at the Canadian Grand Prix gave him “so much hope” for the rest of the season.

His teammate George Russell scored fourth place to secure a successful Sunday for the German team and they appear close to pushing Ferrari for position, if not Red Bull.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the race, Hamilton said: “Qualifying was emotional for me and back in the garage we were like ‘wow, this is beautiful for us’.

“Then to have a strong race just gives me so much hope and confidence going forwards.

“There is potential in this car, but it’s got a really small working window and if you don’t get it perfect it’s all over the place and that’s a really hard thing to navigate through, but the team did a great job this weekend.”

Russell wanted more, but was pleased to score points for the team.

“I had total confidence we were able to carve our way past the Haas and Alpines. We were certainly concerned [Charles] Leclerc and Checo [Perez] would be able to come through and be fortunate to keep them behind us,” he said.

“Ultimately, our race-pace was closer to Ferrari and Red Bull than we’ve seen all season, but the inherent performance isn’t there yet.

“Nevertheless, P4, it’s good points for the team and great to be back on the podium for the team.”

Team principal Toto Wolff, however, cautioned against too much optimism, pointing at work yet to be done.

“Before the safety car came out at the end we were actually quicker than Sainz. You’re picking out a few laps and saying, ‘yeah we are back’ but I don’t think we’re there yet. We need to keep on working,” he stated.

“The way forward, we just need to develop the car in a different window than we had. We were having it really low on the ground and clearly that doesn’t function.

“I think we have development direction. We didn’t get it right in many areas but we own the problem and we need to fix it.”