Lewis Hamilton admits surprise as Mercedes pick up good points in Australia

Lewis Hamilton has said he didn’t expect a third and fourth place finish for the Mercedes cars this weekend at the Australian Grand Prix, as the Silver Arrows once again picked up the points that were left on the table by others suffering misfortune.

An already out of place Carlos Sainz retired early in the Grand Prix with his Ferrari beached in the gravel trap, whilst Max Verstappen suffered a retirement – his second in three races at the start of this season – to open the door for a podium finish for Mercedes.

As in Bahrain, the Silver Arrows were on hand to pick up the spoils left by others and Hamilton admitted the team didn’t expect to finish inside the top four with both cars, but they’ll certainly take it:

“This weekend, we’ve had so many difficult moments with the car, so to get ourselves fifth and sixth in qualifying and to progress like we have, we definitely didn’t expect third and fourth.

“George did a great job today, I saw a bit of him racing Perez and I wish I could have been in it, but we’ll take these points and keep pushing.

“I couldn’t fight for third because the engine was overheating, so I had to back off. But as I said, we bagged as many points as we could as a team, so that’s great.”