Hamilton explains why Hungary give-back boosted his motivation

Lewis Hamilton says the Hungarian Grand Prix was a great moment for Mercedes and a turning point for his personal motivation.

Outqualified by Valtteri Bottas at the Hungaroring, Hamilton overtook his team mate on team orders but ultimately gave the position back after failing to mount an attack on leader Sebastian Vettel.

The move solidified Mercedes' team spirit but it also pushed the four-time world champion to make sure the circumstances weren't repeated in the future.

"We did a great thing for the team that had a positive ripple effect," Hamilton said on Friady at the FIA's annual prize-giving media conference.

"It was a really positive thing that I let Valtteri back past and finished fourth.

"I went into that break and mentally I was like 'I don't ever want to be in a position, or even put the team in a position where they have to decide whether we're first or second'.

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"I was like 'from now on, I need to be ahead every single time' and then there'll never, ever be the question or whether Valtteri should let Lewis past and those kind of things.

"I made sure that I studied what I'd done at the beginning of the year and applied everything I'd learned to the second part."

Hamilton viewed his season-long battle with Vettel - an outside rival compared to his fights in 2016 with team mate Nico Rosberg - as positive for himself and the Silver Arrows squad.

"It was just a much more enjoyable battle," said Hamilton. "When you're fighting against another team, the energy within the team is so much different.

"When you meet all the engineers and you go round and see what they're working on and how they're doing, they ask you questions and they're like 'we want to beat Ferrari, we want to be the best we can be'.

"It's different to the previous year when you may have had an advantage and it was just between the drivers. Then it was like 'we don't really care who wins'.

"It's a different vibe. When their confidence is in you that you can potentially drive them to beat the other team, there's a different engagement from everyone. There was just a unified powerful force towards one goal."

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