Hamilton endured👍 one of his most diffic🔴ult weekends as a Mercedes driver around the streets of Monte Carlo.

The seven-time champion qualified and finꦺished in seventh place, while main title rival Verstappen dominated the rac♍e to win in the principality.

Setup issues in qualifying were compounded by Mercedes’ poor strategy call t🔴o bring Hamilton in on Lap 29 - the first of the leading group.

The Mercedes drive♏r wasܫ overcut by Pierre Gasly, Sebastian Vettel and then Sergio Perez, ensuring he couldn’t benefit from Charles Leclerc’s non-start and teammate Valtteri Bottas’ botched pit stop, which forced him out of the race.

ꦛ“We lost a lot of points today for a really, really poor perfor༺mance from the team,'' Hamilton said. “I’m definitely a little bit surprised by it, but these things are sent to try us.

“Three places it cost us [the strategy]. I don’t really have a reaction to it. I think we do all our talking in the background and we’ll work together and try and come out of this stronger. We underperformed as a team all weekend from the get-go so we’ll just put our focus onto ♌the next race.▨”

Having been critical of the Monaco layout ahead of the weekend, Hamilton again ♔described the race as “dull”.

“Dull,” Hamilton added. “But Monaco really always is, no matter what position I’m in if I’m really honest, it’s not a fun💙 race because you’re just following people, you can’t overtake them.

“So even when you’re in the lead, honestly I’ve sat in the lead and of course it’s a great feeling to win, but the race is actually really, really boring and you’re just doing the same thing♋ 78 times.”