Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Hamilton admits he feared Monaco hangover

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Lewis Hamilton admits he feared the "emotional experience" of his lost Monaco Grand Prix victory would affect him at future races.

The championship leader was set for a comfortable victory in Monaco when an error from Mercedes saw him called in to the pits behind the safety car, dropping him to third late on and costing him an almost certain win. With team-mate Nico Rosberg going on to take victory, Hamilton bounced back in Canada to lead home a Mercedes one-two.

Asked if it was important for him to try and stop Rosberg's momentum after the German had secured back-to-back victories, Hamilton said the bigger issue has been to make sure he puts Monaco behind him as quickly as possible.

"I’m never one to talk about momentum because I don’t feel … You’ve got two weeks after a race so it’s not like you go from one day to another and you’re gathering momentum – it dies," Hamilton said. "You go into the next race with the conscious know-how you’ve won the previous race but I don’t really see it as momentum as such.

"I think it was just important for me personally, not concerning Nico, just to get back after a real difficult race and emotional experience in Monaco. I think that was the most important thing and testing thing for me, because it was not an easy race to come from and could have easily gone pretty badly at the following races. But to bounce back and to drive the same do good that weekend was really good for me."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.