The top three held their original starting positions on the first lap before the race was neutralized by a safety car when Kimi Raikkonen lost his front wing on the main straight after a collision with Alfa Romeo’s team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi and landed on Turn 1 gravel.
Hamilton was caught napping while restarting Verstappen. The Red Bull driver used a great run to drive past the Mercedes driver on Turn 1 and advance to second place.
The seven-time world champion admitted he was “not happy” with his post-race mistake after realizing he was temporarily distracted by focusing on his teammate Valtteri Bottas.
“I lost my position, that’s what happened!” Hamilton replied jokingly when asked what had happened.
“It was interesting because of course I was focused on Valtteri and literally just looked in my mirror for a split second to see where Max was and in that split second Valtteri went so I lost to Valtteri. So that wasn’t great!
“Then I was in Valtteri’s tow and he was about to move out, so I pulled back and gave Max Valtteri’s tow and I was like ‘you idiot’ to me [laughs]. ”
On the subject of matching items
But Hamilton soon made amends by dipping into Verstappen’s Red Bull a few laps later before scoring a spectacular pass to Bottas outside Turn 1 on the way to his 97th career win in F1 at Portimao.
“That was such a tough race,” added Hamilton. “Physically and mentally, just hold everything together. It was very windy out there, very easy to put a foot wrong
“I think Max made a mistake at some point on the lap, which was perfect because I knew this would be the lap where I could be as close to him as I could be in the final sector.
On the subject of matching items
“With Valtteri I had to move early before the tires were destroyed. I managed to get him into Turn 1, right at the limit. A great race. “
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