Seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari's Zandvoort strategy cost him a podium finish.

The Briton, having passed Oscar Piastri for fifth, and out of sync with the cars ahead of him, was running behind his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc, who was running at a slower pace.

Already frustrated at having been ordered to pit though he felt his tyres were fine, Hamilton made clear that he felt he should be allowed to pass his teammate.

"I'm quicker than Charles," he said, "I think my tyres are better".

While the Ferrari crew prepared for Leclerc stopping the Monegasque continued, costing Hamilton precious time.

"We're just losing time!" urged the Briton.

Next time around the Monegasque obeyed the order.

"Great waste of time there guys," snapped Hamilton.

The Briton was subsequently given the option of pitting for fresh mediums, but Hamilton wasn't convinced.

"Didn't look great on Charles," he replied. "Is it slower?"

"We are not sure," replied his engineer, Carlo Santi.

"Well, you guys have got the data, so figure it out," snapped Hamilton again as he continued in second behind Norris.

When Lando Norris pitted on Lap 47, Hamilton found himself leading, but Antonelli and the 2025 world champion were not far behind and closing.

"Are you guys using me as a guinea pig," asked Hamilton, "what's going on? Why have I been kept out so long?"

Eventually, having been passed by Norris and Antonelli, Hamilton was able to pit under the VSC that resulted from Esteban Ocon stopping on track, emerging behind George Russell in fourth.

However, in the eyes of the Briton, it was too little, too late.

"I want to win," he subsequently told F1TV. "I'm here to win and it is difficult when you're looking ahead and you see the two Mercedes drivers.

"They get the call and it's done," he continued, "they execute straight away. They let Kimi by and let him get on with the race.

"I was on a different strategy. It's not the same here and that's a little bit difficult, but we just have to take it.

"We'll take it offline, and when I go back now, I'll speak to them about it."

After Mercedes had dealt with its own drivers, Hamilton was left chasing Russell for third, but the subsequent VSC following the collision involving the Williams pair put paid to any hope of the Ferrari driver passing his former teammate.

"It felt like it was the closest opportunity I had," said Hamilton. "I think I'd come out of Turn 14 pretty close to him and I was just opening SM and just getting on the boost.

"I don't know whether or not we would have got by because the Mercedes is just so quick," he admitted. "You saw the McLaren fly past just on power. We're losing like four-tenths of a lap here just on straight lines.

"So that was a challenge, but I do think the time was lost when I was behind Charles, which ultimately meant I had a bigger distance to cover to try and catch up with George at the end."

Asked about his forceful radio exchanges, he said: "I don't think I said any swear words. My heart rate is 170, and I'm trying to win.

"The one thing I'm definitely really proud of is the team," he added, "they brought an upgrade here this weekend. We are getting closer to them, but half the season we've been down in power, so we really need to pick up the power if we're going to be anywhere near trying to fight for them and close the gap to them."

"I think the pace was good in both cars," said Fred Vasseur, "and we could have achieved a better result in the race. If we were lacking anything, it was more in yesterday's qualifying than in today's race.

"Admittedly, our execution wasn't perfect," he added, "we had a poor start with Charles, lost a position to Piastri even though we were on the soft tyres, then we also had a poor pit stop with Charles, and there was a misunderstanding with Lewis."

Asked about the "misunderstanding", he said: "We actually assumed that the tyres on Lewis's car would last him through to the end. We wanted to pursue this strategy because Antonelli was struggling with tyre wear. Lewis could have held out until the end, and we didn't ask Charles to let Hamilton past because Leclerc had to come into the pits anyway.

"We probably could have done better, but it was also difficult to explain the situation to Lewis over the radio without revealing our plan to our rivals, and that's what led us to this decision.

"But ultimately, I don't think we lost out because of that decision. We probably made more mistakes in qualifying yesterday, because today's pace was just as good as yesterday's in the Sprint. Even if finishing sixth at the end of the first lap means you're too far off the front.

"Today we had the pace to do better, indeed probably even to win the race, but it was more a question of execution that ultimately prevented us from doing better, and that means we'll have to do a perfect job at Monza if we want to achieve a positive result.

"After all, we saw that in Sprint qualifying, four cars were separated by just a few hundredths, but when you start the Grand Prix in fifth and sixth, as we did here, the situation is already compromised."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Zandvoort here.