Hamilton “pressed every button on the steering wheel” to pull off pass on Leclerc

Lewis Hamilton said he had to wring every drop of power out of his car to pass Charles Leclerc as they were “very slow” on the straights.

Leclerc squeezed Hamilton tight to the inside of the track approaching turn one but the Mercedes driver claimed the position as they headed into the corner. Hamilton said the move took a lot of preparation to pull off.

“This weekend we’ve been very, very slow on the straight,” he explained in the post-race conference. “In general, we’re quite draggy on the straights, more often than not, but this weekend, like yesterday we were losing two and a half tenths just into turn one before we even started braking.

“[Ferrari] were very slippery on the straights so trying to follow a closely through turn 16 and 17 was really the only way that I could get close enough and have an opportunity to make the DRS impactful.

“Finally I pressed every button on the steering wheel, maximum power. I didn’t know how far across he was going to go but in a split second decision I decided to go to the right. There was just enough space there but Charles was really fair but great racing.”

Hamilton started the race in sixth and was surprised to finish as high as he did. “I was not expecting to be up here with these guys,” he said. “Difficult weekend, it started out.”

He gained one place on the first lap when Sergio Perez suffered race-ending damage in a collision with Leclerc. After passing Daniel Ricciardo he was able to close on the Ferraris of Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr.

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“I just kept my nose clean at the beginning of the race and then just was really trying to manage the tyres and maximise and progress forwards,” said Hamilton. “When I noticed that I had the pace on Carlos I knew that with the undercut it really worked quite well.”

The race was red-flagged shortly before half distance when Kevin Magnussen suffered a heavy crash in his Haas. Hamilton took the opportunity to switch to the medium tyre compound at this point which allowed him to attack Leclerc for second place.

“The team did a great job I think with strategy and then of course the red flag probably played into our hands in terms of getting on to the fresh tyre at the end,” he said. “But I didn’t know whether or not the medium would make it that long. I was trying to see if I could close the gap to Max but he was long, long gone and I could only just about equal his times.”

Hamilton claimed the bonus point for fastest lap on the final tour, but said he didn’t have the pace to catch Verstappen.

“For sure I could have pushed a little bit harder but I did at one time try to see. I was like ‘okay, I think I’ve saved enough, let me see if I can try and close this gap to Max’. I think it was like 10 laps to go and I did a 22.0 and Max did a 21.9. I was like, ‘I’ll leave it’. He was just cruising at 21.9 so I thought I’d leave it there.

“Also I had to be careful because obviously my tyres, if I really pushed them for the last 10 laps, they probably would have opened up and who knows, maybe Charles would have caught me up so I just had to be cautious of that.”

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