Lewis Hamilton said he was “really happy” to take second place in the United States Grand Prix after crashing out of the last round in Qatar.
The Mercedes driver started third at Circuit of the Americas and chased down Lando Norris in the final stint to pass the McLaren driver around the outside of turn two to take second place.He spent the rest of the race trying to catch leader Max Verstappen. Despite having a set of medium tyres that were fresher than Verstappen’s hard compound rubber, Hamilton was unable to catch the Red Bull driver, finishing just over two seconds behind him at the chequered flag.
At the previous round in Qatar, Hamilton retired on the first lap after clashing with his Mercedes team mate George Russell at the first corner. Hamilton said he was determined to follow up that disappointment with a strong result in Austin.
“Honestly, it was really difficult after the last race,” Hamilton admitted.
“Firstly with everything that’s going on in the world, and then obviously the big mistake that I made. I really felt like I let the team down so much.
“I had to go through a real deep process of getting myself back to here. And it was again just one of those experiences of ‘it’s not how you fall, it’s how you get back up’. So I came in fighting, felt great, and really happy with this result.”
During the final laps Hamilton told his team on the radio Verstappen was too quick to be caught. “We have to congratulate these guys,” Hamilton said of his rivals after the race. “This team has just done an incredible job all year long, just dominated and Max has been really flawless.
“We were catching him towards the end and I was hopeful, but we needed some more laps. The team did an amazing job this weekend, so much work to bring this upgrade here.”
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BasCB (@bascb)
23rd October 2023, 7:42
Well, so much for that. But he really did race very well this weekend. Shame it did not bring in the result today though