Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton has defended Formula 1's slower teams, after claims that he got frustrated with getting caught in slower traffic during the United States Grand Prix.
The lead trio of Kimi Raikkonen, Max Verstappen and Hamilton had the challenge of overhauling lapped traffic through the closing stages of a pulsating race at Austin.
Raikkonen expressed displeasure with one of the Williams drivers while Hamilton sternly called for blue flags while getting caught up in the traffic.
When asked if lapped cars should face further action if they don't promptly move out of the way for the leaders, Hamilton said: "I don't think it's entirely the backmarkers’ fault, as I said here, tyre pressures had gone up, it's very hard to follow.
"So as soon as you get within, it's even five seconds, you feel the wake from the car, it hits. The car starts sliding more, so the advantage you have starts to disappear the closer you get.
“They've got a race to do, they shouldn't have to let off massively to give several seconds to you, so it’s a bit of a difficult scenario.
"For example, I was stuck behind two Toro Rossos, but I couldn't get close enough as the tyres were getting worse and worse and I wasn't getting close enough for them to lift off. So it is a difficult one. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as somewhere like Singapore for example."
Too hard to follow, hopes for changes in 2021
The championship leader has put a large part of the blame on the design of the current generation of cars, which make it extremely difficult for drivers to follow each other in close proximity.
Hamilton is hoping his former Mercedes boss Ross Brawn, who is now F1's director of motorsport, can help shape the regulations for 2021 and beyond in a way which can allow for much closer racing.
He added: "[There are] still fundamental issues in Formula 1 being that you can't follow, so there are still big gaps between us all, so I really, really hope what Ross, the team and the guys are doing.
"I hope they're making some good decisions for 2021 so that there is not a second and a half that you need to get close to a car, hope it's a lot less than that.
“If we can get a lot less than that, we can have the best racing series ever.
"Naturally, I think that's a fundamental issue of the sport. There shouldn't be such a difference first and last. Shouldn't be such a massive difference between cars.
"How a Williams or McLaren can be seconds off a lap, that's a huge amount of performance.
“I think they've got to change the rules to allow that gap to close so we can have more awesome racing. It's got the potential to be the greatest racing series there is.
"Look at MotoGP and they're fighting wheel to wheel, corner to corner.”
