There was no doubt in Lewis Hamilton's mind that he could have beaten teammate Nico Rosberg to victory at the Russian Grand Prix had it not been for a water pressure warning midway through the race.
Hamilton recovered from tenth on the grid to second by the chequered flag, but on lap 37 his chase for victory was curbed by news from the Mercedes pit wall that his water pressure was dropping. The gap was down to seven seconds at the time and Hamilton felt he had the pace to trouble Rosberg in the closing stages if he had been able to continue at full power.
"There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I couldn't win it," he said. "I had the pace but then I had the problem with the engine again so I had to back off.
"I don't know really what happened and after that I have no idea how critical the engine was, there was no indication for me in the car but I did have to slow down."
Hamilton was fifth after a chaotic start to the race and then pushed hard to move up to second after his single pit stop. He pulled an inspired overtake on Kimi Raikkonen at Turn 5 for third place and then a bold move on Vatteri Bottas for second.
"With Kimi I don't think he was expecting me to overtake there so that was great and the second one with Valtteri it was from quite far back but he didn't seem to defend so it was quite easy."