Hamilton denied being frustrated with having to qualify heavier than Alonso in the past few races. (LAT Photo) » More Photos
Lewis Hamilton continued his astonishing run with his fifth straight podium on his first season, the last four of which have been second places. However the result was tinged with frustration as everything seemed to be pointing in the direction of him winning this weekend.
That became slightly less likely when the team gave him a five-lap heavier fuel load for qualifying in order to put him in a window where he could one-stop, should a safety car period make that the preferable strategy. That didn't happen, so he had to be content with being stuck behind Fernando Alonso for the duration. At the end of the race he was naturally disappointed, and came up with some surprisingly colorful answers when he spoke to the media about the race and the team's strategy.
Q: Lewis, keeping up your brilliant record of podium finish in every race so far but very, very close to Fernando going into that third stint, and it looked as if you might have touched the guardrail going into Mirabeau.
"Yeah, I hit the barrier plenty of times in the race and I was fortunate that we've got a solid car. The team has done a good job as usual, and it's strong enough to take the hit. But yeah, we were quick, it's extremely difficult round here trying to follow someone. All weekend both of us have had great pace and it was tough. I tried to get as close as possible and tried to get ahead but… next time, I guess."
Q: Fernando mentioned that he was behind Trulli for a while. You had a very aggressive slice inside Jarno coming out of the swimming pool section.
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"Yeah, today I think traffic was quite poor. It's always poor in Monaco just because it's so tight, but Fernando would get past someone and then I'd have to wait quite a while until… or have to shout on the radio to get them to put the blue flag out. So it was always tricky. I would gain and then I would lose, more or less, and so that made it extremely difficult but I had to try and be as aggressive as possible but safe at the same time. I needed to come out of this race with as many points as possible."
Q: Going into that third stint you were very close to Fernando. What was your thinking at that point, just to push as hard as you could, perhaps force Fernando into an error?
"Yeah, absolutely. I knew that we were both extremely quick, and when you're behind someone you can't follow them that closely, so I knew there would be no way to get so close to him and overtake him. So the only way was to apply pressure and he's a two-time World Champion, he doesn't really make mistakes, so it's extremely difficult. He did a great job as well as the team, as always. We've made a fantastic step forward and as you can see, we were a good step ahead of everyone else today, and that's all due to the hard work the team has done."
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