A subdued Lewis Hamilton addressed the media after the race as Mercedes team orders meant that Valtteri Bottas had to give up his race lead, so as to let Hamilton ultimately get a 50 point advantage over Sebastian Vettel.
It was the near perfect race for Hamilton, who despite being undercut by Vettel from his pitstop was able to get back to his 2nd position(and then helped onto the 1st by the Mercedes team orders).
During his battle with Vettel, after he had gotten in front of him, Hamilton almost ran into the wall(or Vettel), when the German had ‘allegedly’ made the double move in the braking zone.
Hamilton managed to avoid that little incident and ended up overtaking Vettel on the next turn, pulling off a sublime 90 degree right hander overtake.
The incident was under question and was being investigated by the stewards, but no further action was taken as the stewards felt that Vettel had not made an illegal move.
However, Hamilton had a different viewpoint of the entire incident, calling out Vettel was almost pushing him into the wall.
“Ultimately for me, he did move over to the inside, and then he moved again, and then he put me in the wall,” he said.
“I thought it was a double move but I guess they didn’t see that.
“But fortunately I was able to stay out of the wall and still get around the corner.” he added.
Vettel claimed that he did not quite see Hamilton there, but claimed that he drove hard but fair, ultimately giving Hamilton that space to go past him.
“I didn’t see him through the left-hander, I wasn’t really sure where he was,” said Hamilton.
“I thought he was somewhere on the outside.
“Even if I didn’t want to, but I had to, to make sure that it remained fair – or hard but fair – and he obviously got past.” he added.
