After a relatively successful weekend for Mercedes in Canada, Lewis Hamilton shed light on the team’s progression.
The Briton qualified in P3 and despite overtaking Fernando Alonso for second at the start, he ultimately finished the grand prix on the bottom step of the podium.
Despite failing to get the better of the Aston Martin driver, Hamilton was pleased to score a second consecutive podium for Mercedes.
“It’s honestly been a great weekend for us. We are slowly chipping away,” he said.
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“The Astons took a little bit of a step this weekend when they added the upgrades,
“But we are working on bringing some more moving forwards.
“To just have this consistency and be up on the podium here in Montreal… to be up there with two world champions… I was really excited to be third and just try to be in that mix, but unfortunately, we just didn’t have the pace today.
“We knew this weekend, this wouldn’t be our strongest circuit, as we struggle in the lower speed corners particularly, and that’s really where I was losing to Fernando and Max, just on traction out of Turn 2, and pretty much every corner.
“But we’ve got a lot of work to do to just add rear downforce to the car, and a little bit more efficiency, but we are chipping away.
“I do believe we will get there at some stage,
“Max was a little bit gone, but I think our pace was a little bit closer today, so we are going in the right direction.”
It was another strong performance for Hamilton who has now secured back-to-back podiums taking his points tally to 102 for the season.
However, the Silver Arrows failed to replicate the double podium finish in Spain, as teammate George Russell was forced to retire.
Russell started the race in fourth and nearly produced a sensational move over Fernando Alonso to take third.
But after a driver error, in which Russell lost control and hit the wall, an early pit stop was necessary.
The Briton came out of the pits in 19th and put on an electrifying display to climb into 8th place before his luck ran out and he had to retire.
On lap 55, his team retired the car due to a suspected brake duct issue.
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It is the second time this season that George Russell has retired.
Russell was unable to build upon a third-place finish in Spain, missing out on the points entirely.
In the current drivers’ standings, Russell sits in 6th on 65 points, wedged between the two Ferrari drivers with Carlos Sainz in 5th and Charles Leclerc in 7th.