Lewis Hamilton has broken down what was going through his head amid the United States Grand Prix on Sunday and admitted at one point he really thought he would win.
He and his closest Championship rival, Max Verstappen, spent the 56 laps trading turns in the lead, but Red Bull’s strategy proved victorious this weekend.
The Red Bull driver is now 12 points in the lead with just 5 races to go, and the battle looks likely to continue until the end of the season.
Speaking after the race at the Circuit of the Americas, Hamilton explained his take on the outing.
He said: “Unfortunately we weren’t quick enough to win the race today but yeah, we just look forward and take it one race at a time.
“We have no idea… they are two circuits that are strong for Red Bull so we just try to minimise how strong they can be compared to us and see if we can do a better job.”
“I really thought for a second we might be able to win, I gave it absolutely everything out there. It was such a tough race, but unfortunately, we couldn’t convert it.
“Red Bull just had the upper hand, and we couldn’t match them. It looked like they had a better and more stable rear end on their car, with less sliding.
“The start was obviously great and closing the gap towards the end, but I got into the dirty air and the tyres overheated in the last few laps.
“Thank you to the team for amazing pit stops and so much hard work over the weekend. We didn’t quite get it this time, but we’ll move onto the next one.”
