LEWIS TAKING IT TO THE MAX
Hamilton lays down marker for rival Verstappen
LEWIS HAMILTON roared past championship rival Max Verstappen and Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas to win the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Mercedes were pushed to their limits by the Red Bull of Verstappen throughout the race, with the Dutchman sweeping past Hamilton on the restart thanks to a brief Safety Car period, the seven-time champion slipping back to third early on.
Those placings were short-lived after a mistake from Verstappen gifted Hamilton an opportunity to get back to second and reel in teammate Bottas for the lead, with the Finn struggling with a sensor issue in the latter part of the race.
Hamilton said: “I am telling you, that was such a tough race.
“Physically and mentally keeping everything together, it was very windy out there so it was easy to put a foot wrong.
“Just didn’t quite get as good of start as Valtteri and lost out on the restart which was not good, I was not happy about that.
“I really had to try and position myself the best I could, I can’t remember, I think Max made a mistake at some point in the lap, which was perfect. I knew that was going to be the lap that I was going to be as close as I could to him in the last sector. “With Valtteri I had to make the move early on before the tyres were destroyed and managed to just get him at turn one, right on my limit.” Verstappen, who struggled for pace all weekend, was looking to take the lead of the championship for the first time in his career. He said: “It was pretty decent, I had a good restart and then I tried to put the pressure on Valtteri but at the end I think we just lacked a little bit of pace overall. Lewis got by again and then after the pit stop, the warm up is super hard on these tyres.
“But once we resettled in second, you could clearly see around here we were lacking a bit of pace compared to Mercedes.”
Verstappen’s fastest lap, which is worth a point and went to Bottas instead, was deleted for track limits at turn 14.