Hamilton finished sixth in Sunday's race and behind George Russell again despite leading his team-mate for the majority of the weekend after a Safety Car played into one Mercedes' hands, and hampered the other.

Russell capitalised on Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly's crash with his first stop for fresh tyres while Mercedes were left with a conundrum on Hamilton, who had already pitted. After some radio debate - with Mercedes consulting Hamilton for his own input on the decision - the seven-time world champion eventually stayed out and was passed by Russell on-track.

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Hamilton questioned the strategy afterwards, saying he didn't understand why he was asked and that he was left as a "sitting duck" to Russell.

Mercedes' technical director Mike Elliott explained the scenario and Mercedes' difficult decision in the team's latest race debrief.

"The Safety Car came at completely the wrong time for Lewis," stated Elliott.

"If we didn't pit him he was always going to have George behind him on a much newer tyre. If we did pit him, he would lose track position to George.

"Although Lewis would have had a new tyre, the only new tyres we had available to us was the hard or the soft and while you might think the soft would have been a good solution, we knew that the soft tyre would overheat very quickly.

"We knew it would overheat even more quickly because he was just behind George fighting on track and that would have put even more heat into the tyres.

"We were caught between a rock and a hard place and there was no real right answer."

Elliott said there being "no right or wrong answer" contributed to the team asking Hamilton for his opinion, a rarity on the pit wall. Mercedes' strategy chief James Vowles told Hamilton they would "leave it to your decision", prompting replies of "you tell me man, don't leave it to me", from the driver.

"You would have seen us asking that question, what did he think he wanted to do?" said Elliott.

"That was just because there was no right or wrong answer and sometimes the drivers have a better feel in the car than we as the engineers do looking at the data.

"As it happened it was just the circumstances that took place meant Lewis lost out because of the Safety Car."

Hamilton has been unlucky with Safety Cars in two of the last three races, and has now finished behind Russell on four consecutive Sundays.

"Unfortunately Lewis has been unlucky a couple of times already this season," added Elliott.

"But it's just the way that things pan out and hopefully over the season it balances up and he will have some advantages that come to him through to timings of the Safety Cars in future races."