The seven-time world champion celebrated his 300th grand prix start with his best result of the season so far with a fantastic drive to claim second place behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at Paul Ricard.
Hamilton said his afternoon was made tougher after his drinks bottle system failed during the race which took place amid sweltering temperatures.
“What amazing weather we’ve had, and it was a tough race because my drinks bottle didn’t work,” Hamilton said.
“But what a great result, considering we’ve been so far off these guys all weekend.
“Reliability is one thing that my team’s been amazing at so huge congratulations to the teams back at the two factories, the team here who without them we couldn’t get this podium and George did an amazing job today as well.”
Hamilton, who was spotted laying on the floor in the cool down room prior to the podium ceremony, added: “If I’m really honest I very rarely often drink during the race, I often forget to. I hydrated a lot before the race.
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“By lap 20 the thing didn’t work and I could really have done with a drink. I haven’t tried it for so long so maybe it hasn’t worked for ages. Maybe the water evaporated, who knows!
“But it was no biggie – thankfully afterwards I was able to have a drink.”
The Mercedes driver estimated that he lost “around three kilos” during the race.
“I didn’t see my weight just now, but I would imagine [I lost] probably around three kilos,” he said. “So, yeah, it’s enough. I’m looking forward to downing the rest of this drink.”
While Hamilton was encouraged by the result, with teammate George Russell also finishing on the podium in third, the 37-year-old admitted it will be difficult for Mercedes to challenge rivals Red Bull and Ferrari at next weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
“It’s going to be hard to beat the Ferraris and the Red Bulls,” he said.
“You see they have the pace advantage still, but I’m hoping we will bring some sort of upgrade to that track, and hopefully take a step forward closer to them.
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“You can see, in the race, we can at least lean on them a little bit, so hopefully in that race [we’ll be] even closer.”
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