Hamilton: Disqualification doesn't take away from progress made

The stewards found that the wear of the under-floor wooden plank on the #44 Mercedes was more than allowed by the regulations, the same also found on Charles Leclerc's Ferrari who was also disqualified from the race results alongside Hamilton.

It was a shame, as Hamilton drove a great race in the upgraded Mercedes, and finished over two second behind race winner Max Verstappen, the gap even going under two seconds at some point.

With Verstappen nursing a race-long brake problem, Hamilton had a real chance to take his 104th Formula 1 victory, but Mercedes' late decision to switch to a two-stop strategy did not help his race, but that doesn't matter anymore now with the disqualification.

"Firstly, congratulations to Max and Red Bull," Hamilton said in Mercedes' post race report, after Verstappen took his 50th F1 career win.

"They have done an incredible job all year long, they've dominated and been nearly flawless. We were catching them towards the end, though. I was hopeful that I could, but I just need a couple of more laps," he added.

After crashing out of the previous race in Qatar, following contact with his teammate George Russell, Hamilton admitted he needed to work hard to come back from that incident.

He said: "There has been so much work to bring this upgrade here and it was difficult after the last race in Qatar. I really felt like I let the team down, so I had to go through such a deep process to get myself back to here.

"It's one of those experiences of 'it's not how you fall, it's how you get back up'. I came here in the mood to fight hard, felt great and I'm really happy with my performance."

"Overall, we still didn't perform optimally today. We had good pace and I was feeling great in the car. It was tough racing those around me as they were so quick, but we can be happy with many things. I feel positive as we're moving forward, even if reflecting on it we could have possibly won today.

"It is of course disappointing to be disqualified post-race but that doesn't take away from the progress we've made this weekend," the seven-time F1 Champion concluded.

Russell, who crossed the line in seventh - later promoted to fifth - did not have the pace of his teammate over the Austin weekend in the upgraded W14.

Reflecting on his race, Russell said: "The race start really cost me today. I lost three positions and then, and I don't know why, when we put the Hard tyre on, I was massively off the pace.

"I had to manage the lift and coast too and I was just dropping like a stone. When we put the Medium tyre on, suddenly we were amongst the quickest cars on the track. I closed over 10 seconds on Max (Verstappen) in that final stint. It's disappointing when I definitely felt that there was the potential to fight for a podium," he explained.

"The positive is that the car has improved," the Briton continued. "We have full focus on 2024 but we also know that the upcoming weekends should suit us more than here.

"We need to wait and see how we get on there. It's been a scrappy weekend for me but I'm feeling excited and motivated for the final four races of the year," Russell concluded.