A bonus victory for Hamilton: the reactions of the top 3 after the race
Mercedes came to Hungary thinking they would be behind Ferrari, so Lewis Hamilton is happy to extend his lead in the championship ahead of Sebastian Vettel. He and Kimi Räikkönen accept the result with resignation.
Lewis Hamilton clinches his 67th career victory this Sunday. This win is a boon for him, on a circuit where the Ferrari was superior to the Mercedes. « We arrived in Hungary knowing that Ferrari would be very fast, so leaving with these points, we consider it a bonus. »
If he doesn’t spare a thought for his teammate when getting out of his car, the Briton might thank him behind the scenes. His success leads him to be 24 points ahead of Vettel, almost a joker race at the summer break.
Lewis Hamilton leads Sebastian Vettel by 24 points in the #F1 world championship going into the summer break
📸 @latimages pic.twitter.com/xQQYcDWqOM
— Autosport (@autosport) 29 juillet 2018
Which did not have an easy race, unlike his rival. The German driver was stuck behind Valtteri Bottas for 60 of the 70 laps. « The race was difficult. We were not in a position to fight for the win. I think we could have battled with Lewis [Hamilton] given the race pace. »
The final standings are not satisfactory for him. The 2nd place wasn’t what we wanted, but I think it was the maximum today. Especially since his race could have ended earlier due to the contact with Bottas. I was surprised that he [Valtteri Bottas] hit me. When I looked behind, I first saw Kimi [Räikkönen], so I was reassured.
Podium! #Seb5 #Kimi7 #HungarianGP #ForzaFerrari pic.twitter.com/ysJTaLuJA2
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) 29 juillet 2018
On the final step of the podium, Kimi Räikkönen shows the same pragmatism as his teammate « It’s the best we could hope for today. The start wasn’t perfect so we need to work on that. » He too had to deal with the Bottas bottleneck but wasn’t fazed. « We caught up with Bottas after the first stop but overtaking was impossible. Our option was to make another stop to try again. »
During the contact between Bottas and Vettel [editor’s note, which will not result in any penalty following the stewards’ decision of a racing incident], Räikkönen also managed to gain an advantage over the Mercedes driver « At least we were able to recover a position, but we are far from the target. We had a good pace, but what could we do? Sometimes it’s like that, you take the points and move on. »
