LEWIS HAMILTON left Down Under feeling ‘super grateful’ following his second place fnish in a chaotic Australian Grand Prix which saw the British racer claim Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS’s first podium finish of the season.
Hamilton’s teammate George Russell was forced to retire from the race on a wild afternoon in Melbourne, which saw the race interrupted by three red flag periods, a new F1 record, one Safety Car and one Virtual Safety Car.
A strong getaway at the initial start saw both George and Lewis pass polesitter Max Verstappen and running one-two in the opening stages.
Russell pitted from the lead on lap seven under the Safety Car; the red flag was thrown only a lap later though, comprising his strategy. Hamilton therefore took the subsequent standing start in first having switched to the hard tyre under the red flag.
Russell quickly began his recovery, making up three positions and running fourth when a Power Unit failure ended his race on lap 17. Hamilton, having been passed by Verstappen, was running second ahead of Fernando Alonso and managing his tyres to the end.
With a handful of laps remaining, a second red flag led to yet another standing start. Hamilton kept out of trouble and, despite a third red flag and rolling start procedure after a crash-filled restart, took the chequered flag in second place.
After the race Hamilton said: “To get a podium today is amazing; I definitely didn’t expect to be second this weekend, so I am super grateful.
“Considering we’re down on performance, to be fighting with the Aston Martins is amazing for us at this point in the season.
“We’ve just got to keep fighting. A big thank you to all the people back at the factory. We can close that gap; it’s going to be tough but not impossible.
“It was very unlucky for George today. Our reliability has generally been pretty good so that was unfortunate.
“Finally, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone here in Melbourne and Australia. I’ve had the best week here and this town continues to put on a great show.”
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO said: “We had strong pace today and it was really close with the Aston Martins and the Ferraris.
“That is good news for us, and I think we have made a step forward this weekend, both on one-lap and race pace. We maximised what we have, and we need to now comb through the data and continue to learn about the car.
“This will help bring the upgrade packages and that will be the key in challenging the leaders more often.”
“It was unfortunate with George; he had a great stop from the lead and changed onto the hard tyre. It was absolutely the right call, and he would have been very much at the front.
“With the red flag his race was not so good anymore. He still could have made it to the front though, so he was unfortunate to have a Power Unit failure.”
Comments Form