Hamilton: 'I was just chilling up front'

2016 Brazilian Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton describes his 52nd career victory as “one of the easiest”, despite having to deal with two red flags, three re-starts and treacherous conditions overall at Interlagos.

Lining up on pole position for the 60th time, the Briton never relinquished the lead and went on to beat his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg by over 11 seconds to take the title fight down to the wire in Abu Dhabi.

Despite the poor weather that caught out the likes of Marcus Ericsson, Kimi Raikkonen, and Felipe Massa - with a few other drivers spinning as well - Hamilton claims he breezed through Sunday’s drama-filled contest.

“Generally, I was just chilling up front,” the 31-year-old said. “When it rains, it’s usually a good day for me. It was tricky for everyone. There were definitely opportunities for aquaplaning, which everyone did.

“But for me, no mistakes, no issues, no spins. It was quite interesting to hear along the race how many people behind were spinning but yeah I did not have that problem, so I’m really happy about it.”

Having never tasted victory at the Autodromo José Carlos Pace before this race, Hamilton was then asked to rank his maiden Brazilian GP win compared to his 51 previous successes.

“It probably was one of the easiest one,” he replied. “It was a very easy race generally. Usually when it rains here, it’s really tough but as I said I did not have any spins, did not have any moments, it was pretty straightforward.”

From 33 points three races ago, Hamilton has closed the gap to Rosberg to just 12 as the pair heads to the season finale at Yas Marina for a duel in the desert.

“I’m hunting and all I can do is do what I am doing right now. The team has been giving me a great car and finding the reliability has been really good. The results are really showing that. I’m going to go and give it all and Abu Dhabi is generally a good track for me.

“Right now, I’m going to live in the moment. This has been my dream since the first time I watched Ayrton [Senna] race when I was like five or six years old. To win here [in Brazil] and it’s the 44th grand prix here so it’s kind of a lucky weekend.”

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