On Sunday, Hamilton recovered from a disappointing qualifying session by moving from a lowly 13th grid spot to sixth.
But the seven-time world champion's race could have been a lot better if he and Mercedes hadn't been on the wrong side of an early pitstop call.
Rain arrived right after the start of the Zandvoort race, with the Mercedes drivers among the cars staying out too long on slicks, which turned out to be the wrong decision as the track conditions became progressively worse.
Hamilton's recovery from the back of the field to sixth and his pace in both dry and wet conditions made him believe that he could have challenged Verstappen up front.
"In those conditions, if we'd made the right call, I had the pace to be challenging the top two," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
"I think we would have been challenging Max if I'm really honest.
"Particularly when we got to the dry, pace-wise I think we weren't terribly far off. I'm not saying that we'd beat them, but I think we would have been [close]."
Source: Autosport