On his three-hundredth Grand Prix start, Lewis Hamilton secured a brilliantly unexpected second-place finish at the French Grand Prix, in what was the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team‘s best result of the season.
The seven-time World Champion drove superbly, in what was in the end a relatively simple drive to the second step on the podium at the Circuit Paul Ricard. Hamilton made an excellent start from fourth, and was past Sergio Pérez on the rundown to Turn One on the opening lap.
From then on Hamilton managed the gap to the Mexican driver behind, whilst inheriting second-place due to Charles Leclerc retiring from the lead. Second-place was the best result of the year for Mercedes, which was made even sweeter with team-mate George Russell securing third-place, in what was the German team’s first double podium of the season.
Hamilton was extremely proud of his team after the race, where he “wasn’t expecting” to be fighting for the podium places.
“What a great result, considering we have been so far off all weekend and that I missed FP1. I wasn’t expecting to fight for second place or a podium, so this is a wonderful result for us. Our team has been amazing when it comes to reliability and it shows that with dedication and focus, we can slowly make our way up. We don’t have the same pace yet as the two teams at the front but today we were able to keep one of them at bay so a great result for us, everyone has worked really hard.
“Huge congratulations to the teams back at the factories and the team here. Without them, this wouldn’t have been possible and I’m proud of them. And George did an amazing job today, too.”
We’re making a lot of progress” – George Russell
Russell’s third-place finish was one he had to work extremely hard for, after battling Pérez in the closing stages of the race. Russell also made a good start to the race, and quickly made his way upto fifth after overtaking Lando Norris.
Fifth became fourth when Leclerc retired; however, Russell dropped back to fifth once again after being overtaken by a charging Carlos Sainz Jr. With Sainz having to pit again, Russell eventually found himself on the gearbox of Pérez, with his initial attempt at an overtake resulting in contact between the pair.
The British driver used his wit to get past the Mexican driver, and managed to do so after catching the Red Bull driver napping as the race’s late VSC came to a close. As the flag turned green once again, Pérez was slow to get going, whereas Russell was on the throttle as soon as he could, resulting in an easy overtake.
Russell withheld Pérez’s late challenge, to secure his first podium finish since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Brit thanked “everyone” at Mercedes for their hard work, but also highlighted where the team need to improve to make the next-step forward.
“It was a long and tough race. Our pace was strong, but we really struggled with the warm-up of the tyres on the restart and Checo was strong today. I was glad to see the chequered flag and come home P3. We’re making a lot of progress and we really need to improve our qualifying performance as we’re lacking consistency. We know as a team we struggle with the tyre warm-up and at the restart I struggled with the same issue.
“Our race pace today was reasonable and we’re getting closer to the front. We’re doing everything we can to improve the performance of the car and we believe we are on the right path, so we’re excited what the next races can bring for us. We’re making progress and there is still more to come, thanks to everyone back at the factories in Brackley and Brixworth for their hard work and dedication.”
