At the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last Sunday, Lewis Hamilton recovered brilliantly following an opening lap collision, whilst team-mate George Russell brought home an impressive podium.
Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team driver Russell, started the race in fourth-place. The Brit momentarily led after Charles Leclerc’s retirement, but fell behind both Red Bull Racing drivers later on. Russell was involved in a brilliant battle with both Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez, however, in the end the former Williams Racing driver couldn’t hold them off.
Russell was proud of his third-place finish, and thoroughly enjoyed his fight with the Red Bulls.
“I’m just so proud to be standing here on the podium and bring it home for the team. The guys have worked so hard, so this result is for everyone back in Brackley and Brixworth who’ve worked tirelessly, thank you! I gave it everything I could to hold Max off, they were some enjoyable laps! With the Red Bulls in my mirrors, I was trying to get absolutely everything out of the car to keep them behind. It was very difficult last few laps, a real survival race when we knew we had the gap to manage.“
No man’s land “a horrible feeling” – Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton lost out to Carlos Sainz Jr on the opening lap, before being involved in a collision with Kevin Magnussen. The pair collided at Turn 4, resulting in a front-left puncture for the seven-time World Champion. The puncture dropped Hamilton to nineteenth-place and thirty-six seconds behind the pack.
He made a brilliant recovery making it to fourth-place but slid down to fifth after a water leakage late on.
Hamilton was very pleased with his performance, given the circumstances.
“I had to basically drive at half throttle at the end to try and cool the car, with lots of lifting down the straight just to get fresh air into the engine to cool it down. I was so gutted to lose the place to Sainz, especially after coming from where I came from. I mean, I was 30+ seconds behind last place – that’s like no man’s land. It’s a horrible feeling being that far behind, but you just have to keep your head up, keep pushing, keep going and hoping for better.
“We do still have bouncing but not in the straight line, it’s through corners but no way near as bad as we had before. The guys are working really hard and I am sure we can fix that over time. If I didn’t have that issue at the beginning, who knows where we’d have been at the end. It’s good to know we have similar pace to some of the front runners.”
