F1 | Spanish GP | Lewis Hamilton, driver of the day, on the incident with Magnussen: “I was just on a normal line, I was on the inside and he came out of nowhere and hit me. "
It was an eventful race for the seven-time world champion.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was today´s driver of the day after quite an eventful Spanish GP for him. Mercedes updates were a step forward for the Constructors' champions that lead George Russell and Lewis Hamilton to qualify 4th and 6th yesterday.
Things would get complicated today for Hamilton when he had a crash with Haas´Kevin Magnussen after the start. The incident, considered a race incident by the stewards sent Lewis down the field as he pitted because of a puncture, and the British star even suggested retiring the car.
However, the team decided to keep him on track in what proved to be a good decision. Lewis would finish 5th because an issue during the last laps would make him give up the fight with Carlos Sainz for 4th place.
Speaking to written media, including MotorLAT, after the race Lewis said, “I´m so happy. Obviously, I was expecting a smoother race without the issue at the beginning of the race. And I was 30 seconds at one stage behind last. Having seen where I was like in Jeddah where I started 15th and stuggled to get into the top 10, I was thinking it´s impossible to get back into points position but the team said no you´re on for 8th.
"I didn´t understand it at the beginning and I thought they were definitely getting super optimistic but I gave it everything to see where I come out, but it turns out it was higher than that. It was a little bit unfortune at the end with the engine but I´m just glad we finished.”
About his message to save the engine after the crash with Magnussen he explained: “It was not being defeated. I was 30 seconds behind so I was like if I´m gonna be driving, use a whole engine to drive around in last or out of the top 15 at some point we might have to take a penalty or something like that. I don´t know if reliability is an issue. I won't know until... we've already seen today at the end there was something (wrong). I just wanna save the engine so we don´t have to fight another day but I´m glad we didn´t that shows you never stop you never give up and that´s what I do.”
About the incident with Magnussen he said: “I was just on a normal line, I was on the inside and he came out of nowhere and hit me. He came from behind and hit the side of my car.”
The seven-time world champions takes a lot of positives form today's performance: “We made a lot of improvement with the car I think the race pace is much better; the car is much nicer in the race. We´ve got some improvements to make in Qualifying. Our cars were a little bit different. They experimented something on George´s car which ultimately ended up being the better way to go in qualifying so maybe the next race I'll probably take that on, but this is a great sign that we are in the right direction and I have no doubts cause today If I hadn´t had that I would have been fighting with the Red Bulls so that gives me great hope that at some stage we´ll be fighting.”
