[TheMentat]

I think his complaints were valid...

I'm not sure he could have passed Hamilton, but he very likely would compromised his race by trying and failing. If he closed the gap to a second or so to put on the pressure, he'd wreck his tires because of lost downforce. With that in mind, he hung back in the cleaner air, and resigned himself to second place... not very heroic (to put it mildly), but well reasoned.

His problem was that Hamilton nursed his car so much that he put Nico at risk with the Ferraris. One could even argue that he did it intentionally (unless Hamilton really was that slow... doubtful in my view).