Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Hamilton labels Spa victory 'a dream'

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Lewis Hamilton has described his victory at the Belgian Grand Prix as "a dream" after extending his championship lead.

The defending champion led from pole position and was never under serious threat from Nico Rosberg as he led home a Mercedes one-two to open up a 28-point gap at the top of the standings. Having been able to extend his advantage over Rosberg whenever his team-mate got within 2.5s, Hamilton praised the car given to him by Mercedes.

“For me it was just an amazing weekend," Hamilton said. "An incredible job done by the team throughout the pit stops, throughout the weekend, the guys back at the factory … today was a dream. The whole weekend the car was fantastic.

“Nico obviously had good pace but I was able to answer most of the time, so I was fairly relaxed at the front. The car was feeling great, so it was really about looking after the tyres. Particularly at the end when I saw one of the tyres had blown on another car, I was being very cautious so in the last two laps Nico was allowed to close the gap. I felt really under control the whole way and as I said a lot of good assistance from the team, so it felt like 100% all weekend.”

And Hamilton says he is pleased to be able to put last year's race behind him after he collided with Rosberg and claimed his team-mate had allowed contact to happen on purpose.

“At the moment it’s a lot different to last year, obviously at this point. Last year we came away from here and it was a very difficult time, but after that great pace and great results. So for sure that’s the goal, to continue that from here.

"So it’s already been a much, much better year than last year and the plan is to try and continue with that. I still feel there’s improvements to be made, particularly in the race, so that’s what I’ll continue to do, but I’ll definitely take today’s result.”

Click here for a gallery of the biggest crashes at Spa-Francorchamps

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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.