Lewis Hamilton is in “no doubt” Mercedes will now fight for victories in 2022 after his strong recovery at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The seven-time world champion dropped to 19th on the opening lap in Barcelona after a puncture caused by contact with Kevin Magnussen at Turn 4.
But Hamilton would come back through the field to run as high as fourth in the closing laps before a major engine reliability concern forced him to back off and drop down to P5.
“Gutted to lose the pace to Sainz [at the end], especially after like coming from where I came from, you know, 30 plus seconds behind last place,” he said post-race.
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“But you just have to kind of keep your head up, just keep pushing, keep going and hoping for better, you know.
“They [the team] said I could maybe get to eighth and an eighth didn’t feel like a particularly impressive result.
“But I was like well, at least I’ll get into the points and so to then finish fourth, I was so happy.”
In fact, after making a pit stop on Lap 1, Hamilton was suggesting Mercedes retire the car to save the engine.
“I was 30 seconds behind so I thought if I am going to use a whole engine to drive around in last or out of the top 15 and at some point take a penalty, we may as well save the engine so we can live to fight another day,” he explained.
“Thank god we didn’t, that is why we never stop we never give up and that’s what I did.”
? Lewis: “Great work guys, really happy with that result. Thank you for continuing to push. These improvements really worked this weekend, let’s keep pushing!” pic.twitter.com/4D25j9GMWb
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) May 22, 2022
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff also defended Hamilton’s initial pessimism but ended by making a bold claim based on the pace Lewis showed.
“It’s always the call when you basically lost the race and decide what’s the benefit of continuing, but I think as a driver, you know that you are like, ‘that can’t be possible, I’m 50 seconds behind the leaders’,” he said.
“But it’s still valuable mileage, we are never giving up anyway. And at the end, I mean, his race pace was stunning here. He would have raced for the win.”
Hamilton too also wondered what could have been but was left very optimistic looking forward.
“The car felt great in the race; our pace was closer to the rest, the top guys in the race, which was amazing,” he stated.
P6 ? P19 ? P5 ? Just @LewisHamilton things. ? pic.twitter.com/jf9EJ11NW5
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) May 23, 2022
“This is a great sign that we’re going in the right direction. I have no doubt at some stage [we can fight for wins again] because today, if I hadn’t had that, I’d have been fighting with the Red Bulls.
“So that gives me great hope that at some stage we’ll be fighting for the win.”