Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has said he still trusts his team despite the tactical errors costing him the potential victory at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Hamilton retired on lap 63 of the race after losing the lead after his Mercedes team failed to pit him under VSC leaving him over 7 seconds to make up to come out still in the lead.
While Hamilton’s rivals all dived into the pits the Mercedes driver stayed out, but with his slower pace, he struggled to build up the required gap of 20 seconds to come back out in the lead.
After Hamilton pitted for new tyres his team apologised for the blunder, but he emerged in fourth place just ahead of Sebastian Vettel. As a result of Hamilton’s retirement, he is now one point behind his championship rival Vettel.
Hamilton told Sky Sports: “Ultimately, the guys on the pitwall, you have to put 100 per cent confidence and faith in them and they have the picture.
“All I can see is the guy in front of me and behind me, I don’t really know – actually at the time I was in the lead, so I couldn’t see where they were.
“So in those circumstances, you have to rely fully on the guys on the pit wall.
“We’re going to work hard to understand where have gone wrong on both ends. I know everyone on the team is feeling the pain today.
“But we’ve got to take out the positives of this weekend and ultimately we were quickest so we should have won. We’re going to keep working hard.”
Asked if he still had full faith in his team, Hamilton replied: “Of course.”