Lewis Hamilton appeared to aim a subtle dig in the direction of Max Verstappen after securing a remarkable podium finish at the British Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon. The Mercedes driver managed to cross the finish line in third place after a titanic battle with Charles Leclerc towards the end of a hugely chaotic 52-lap contest.
Hamilton fought tooth-and-nail with Leclerc through the twists and turns of Silverstone and even went wheel-to-wheel with the Ferrari driver at the infamous Copse corner. The 37-year-old went on to give credit to Leclerc for driving sensibly before making a subtle reference to last year’s high-speed crash with Verstappen, which took place at the same part of the track and resulted in Hamilton picking up a 10-second time penalty.
“For a while it was feeling long,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 as he ran the rule over proceedings after the end of the race.
“A bunch of things went against me. The gap was like five or six seconds to catch the Ferraris but I had a really good long stint and thought we could maybe fight for the win, but the pit stop was not very quick and I struggled to warm up [the new tyres].
JUST IN: British Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton claims stunning podium finish
“Charles did a great job, what a great battle. A very sensible driver, clearly very different to what we experienced here last year [with Verstappen].
“We had to have the tyre deficit in order to get past him, but yeah. Really, really amazing weekend.”
This year’s result at Silverstone only marked Hamilton’s second podium finish of the campaign, with Mercedes having struggled to keep up with their Constructors’ Championship rivals over the course of the season to date. He will be desperately hoping for the Silver Arrows to maintain their newly-found positive momentum when F1 returns to Austria next weekend in order to compete for another strong finish in Spielberg.
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“We’re still on the mend, we’ve still got work to do,” added Hamilton when quizzed on where Mercedes stand after impressing at Silverstone.
“A big thank you to the team for all the upgrades this weekend but we need to keep pushing and stay positive. It’s great to be back in the fight.”
Carlos Sainz ultimately took the chequered flag to secure his maiden Grand Prix victory ahead of Sergio Perez and Hamilton, with a terrifying first-lap crash involving George Russell, Alex Albon and Guanyu Zhou sparking a lengthy red-flag period at the start of the race. The latter, who flipped upside down before skidding across the gravel and into the barriers, needed to be helped out of the cockpit and was quickly taken to the medical centre for precautionary checks before he was thankfully discharged after being declared fit.
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