Lewis Hamilton pulled off his best result of 2024 so far with third place in the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, making a record-extending 198th podium finish in F1.
Hamilton hasn't been on the podium since last year's Mexico Grand Prix, but his success in Spain means that he has now completed 18 consecutive seasons with at least one podium finish, an F1 record.
“This is the best weekend I’ve had all year,” Hamilton told the media in the paddock. "For a long, long time, for like 15 races or something crazy. It’s good to be back, it’s good to have battles like today, it’s good to reassert and reaffirm.”
Hamilton had been fastest in second practice on Friday and had been hoping to be in the mix for pole in qualifying, but ended up sharing the third row with his Mercedes team mate George Russell instead.
When the lights went out, Lando Norris and Max Verstappen tangled in the long run down to the first corner which allowed Russell to take the lead, but Hamilton wasn't able to follow him through.
He was left in P4 and under heavy pressure from the two Ferrari cars of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. "Unfortunately like Lando I got a bad start. “Not quite sure what happened. I felt like I lost a bit of power in the second phase.
"It was a bit of a battle to get back to where I am now," he admitted. “After a bad start, to recover and get back into P3 is a really, really great job.
"I’m really happy, particularly my second and last stints were very, very strong," he continued. "The first one, I was just recovering from such a bad start so that was a bit more tricky, but we’re getting there, we’re getting closer.
"Ultimately I think P3 was the maximum today," he said. "With a better start, I don't know if we could have held onto the guys ahead, but I don't think we would have been as far behind as we were."
Hamilton crossed the line over 15s behind Verstappen and Norris, having used a fresher set of soft tyres to make a late pass on his team mate for the final podium place.
"It was the plan from the beginning, it was never an option to run the hard tyre for me," he said when asked why Russell had been switched to the harder compound by the team for the closing stint. "I drove the race on a soft-medium-soft."
As well as his move on Russell, Hamilton clashed with Sainz earlier in the race in which slight contact was made, although the race stewards saw nothing to concern themselves with then they reviewed the incident.
"I was pleased with my move on Sainz," he declared. "I gave him enough room and we both made it through the corner. It was an important move for my race, so I was glad to get it done.
“They shortened the DRS, so it was not so easy to follow through the last corner, and I really had to pull this move off as early as possible," he explained. "I left him a little bit of room, but it was nice and tight.
"All the overtakes were super close, but that is how it should be, right?" he continued. "It was fair, I left space and it was right on the limit, with a piece of paper between us.
“Pretty awesome for me,” he added. “I think it was clean. Ultimately, he didn’t cover the inside fully. He left the door open which I went for. “A late move, got up alongside, we were wheel-to-wheel. I left him space as much as I could.”
Overall Hamilton was pleased with how the day had gone for him and the team, which also took third and fourth in the last race in Montreal two weeks ago. "“I feel great, I feel fantastic, I’ve got plenty of energy,
"It has been a good day, a good weekend," Hamilton said. "I have to say a big thank you to the team because they've been working so hard in the pit-stops, with the strategy and the pit-stops were really on point.
“I had a lot of great support here actually which I feel over the years has grown. A big thank you to everyone that’s here and everyone that continued to stick it out with me."
Spain marks the first time this season that Mercedes has secured consecutive podiums since last year's races in Spain and Montreal in 2023. It helps them pull away from Aston Martin in the constructors championship in fourth place.
"It's now on to Austria - and we're looking forward to it," Hamilton said, sounding like a man for whom the recent dark days are finally well and truly behind him.
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