The 33-year-old afterwards called for an improvement in communication between himself and the pit-wall, believing that his race in Bahrain was undermined by an inability to react to ongoing developments with his pit crew.
His radio did not work properly, meaning he could not talk to his team about their race strategy and at one point Hamilton fumed: “I feel like you guys are not giving me much of a picture. I don’t know what the f*** I’m doing out here.”
That misfortune followed a miscalculation at the Australian Grand Prix in which Hamilton conceded a race victory due to a software error which led Mercedes to believe he had a strong enough advantage in first ahead of Sebastian Vettel, only to be overtaken under the Virtual Safety Car and finish second.
Fellow four-time world champion Vettel has now claimed back-to-back victories in Melbourne and Sakhir to move 17 points ahead of Hamilton in the world championship standings after two races of 21 in 2018.
Hamilton declared that he was “really happy” with finishing third – taking a podium position largely thanks to a Ferrari mishap as Kimi Raikkonen inadvertently dealt a gruesome injury to one of the Prancing Horse’s mechanics.
But it could easily have panned out differently for Hamilton in Bahrain, believes Brundle, even though he had started down in ninth following a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.
The former British driver wrote in his Sky Sports column: “Once on his fresh tyres from lap 20, [Valtteri] Bottas took off like a scalded cat and was soon politely reminded from his pit-wall that he was running to the end of the 57-lap race.
“That was probably an error because they simply weren’t applying pressure to the ballet-dancing Vettel out front.
“I remember saying in commentary, if Merc wanted to ensure Vettel wore out his tyres then they needed to wear out his mirrors too [by having Bottas push him]. There was a fallow period when Vettel could just get his head down and drive efficiently.
“Similarly, Hamilton went through a strange phase when he was getting angry with his pit-wall for not being clear enough about some radio details he had already confirmed back to them over a dodgy transmission.
“He was a bit clumsy through traffic and his moody demeanour simply wasn’t driving the car forward for a while at the required pace.
“Hamilton finished only 6.5 seconds away from the winner, had he been able to follow instructions he might have won.
“No wonder Merc boss Toto Wolff said they had the race 90 per cent won after the pit stops. Vettel simply outsmarted them all.”
Hamilton will hope to get his first win of the year on the board in Shanghai, China, this weekend.
