After Charles Leclerc retired due to an accident while leading the race at the Paul Ricard circuit, Lewis Hamilton moved up to second position, which he held until the checkered flag, 10 seconds behind Max Verstappen.
Once the race was over, the Briton, who lay down on the ground as soon as he reached the pre-podium room, revealed that his drinking system had not worked this Sunday, which caused his path to second place, his best result of the season so far, was even more complicated in the hot conditions on the asphalt.
“What amazing weather we’ve had, but it was really a tough race because my drinking system wasn’t working,” Hamilton revealed.
“But what a great result we have achieved considering we have been a long way from these guys [Ferrari and Red Bull] all weekend.
“Reliability is something the team has been amazing at, so I want to congratulate everyone at the two factories and everyone here, without them we couldn’t get this double podium finish, and George [Russell] did an amazing job as well. today”.
“I haven’t seen what my weight was, but I imagine [lost] about three kilos. So yeah, it’s quite a lot. I’m looking forward to drinking the rest of this drink [the one in my hand].”
Mercedes had come into Sunday’s race worried and confused by their lack of pace for the rest of the weekend at Paul Ricard, with Hamilton finishing nine-tenths off Leclerc ‘s pole position in qualifying.
Hamilton was buoyed after scoring his fourth consecutive podium finish, and for Mercedes’ first podium one-two so far this season, as team-mate George Russell finished third after a great duel with Sergio Perez.
The seven-time Formula 1 world champion was enthusiastic that Mercedes could “at least put pressure” on Red Bull and Ferrari in terms of race pace and hopeful of upcoming updates that could help bridge the gap.
When asked about his expectations for next week’s Hungarian Grand Prix, he replied: “It’s going to be difficult to beat the Ferraris and the Red Bulls, you see they still have an advantage.”
“But hopefully we’ll bring some kind of improvement and hopefully step up to get closer to them.”
“You could see in the race, we can at least put some pressure on them, so hopefully in the next race we’ll be even closer,” concluded the seven-time world champion.
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