Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes team radio says it all after nightmare Azerbaijan GP

Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes team radio told the story after a difficult Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The seven-time world champion qualified in seventh place on Saturday, but Mercedes decided to take an engine penalty and he was relegated 10 positions.

Hamilton started from the pitlane on a set of medium tyres, but struggled to overtake the cars ahead.

The Brit regularly complained about the performance of the tyres, with surface temperature believed to be the key issue behind why he couldn't get close to the cars in front.

It resulted in a hugely frustrating afternoon for Hamilton, who attempted a one-stop like the rest of the field but made little progress.

A form of salvation did arrive when Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez crashed late on, with the incident promoting Hamilton to ninth place.

But it was far from an ideal weekend for a driver who had won two of the previous five races, with Hamilton revealing on team radio that he had to completely adapt his driving style to avoid wheelspin given the low temperatures of the tyres.

After the race, both his race engineer Peter Bonnington and team principal Toto Wolff spoke to Hamilton to express their frustrations over how the race had gone.

Wolff said: "Lewis, good to make it to the end. It was a horror race. I can so relate to it, we can all relate to it. At least we have taken the penalty now. Let's move forward."

Bonnington said: "Lewis, well done mate. That was P9, but yeah, understand the frustration."

While no radio for Hamilton was recorded after the chequered flag, he did tell Bonnington after the virtual safety car came out: "I'm not even going to say anything because you know what."

Hamilton's team-mate George Russell, who started in fifth, had been on course to finish fifth but ended up in third after the Sainz and Perez crash.

The race was won by McLaren's Oscar Piastri, who finished ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. Championship leader Max Verstappen was fifth.