Lewis Hamilton at the post 2021 Russian GP Press Conference

© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd

Here is the transcript of the post 2021 Russian Grand Prix track interviews and press conference featuring Lewis Hamilton!

TRACK INTERVIEWS

(Conducted by Damon Hill) 

Q: Lewis Hamilton you have just won your 100th grand prix. Tell us, how does that feel?

Lewis HAMILTON: I just want to start by saying thank you to all these fans. We have such a great crowd here. I know it’s not been the best of weather but what a race it provided. So a big thank you to everyone in Russia for having us. It’s taken a long time to obviously get to 100 and I wasn’t even sure whether or not it would come. Lando did such an amazing job. He had incredible pace. He’s doing such a great job for McLaren. It was very bittersweet obviously to see my old team ahead. They are doing so well. They obviously won the last race. They are doing fantastic and obviously powered by Mercedes. It’s good to see them united again. Obviously the team made a great call at the end. I didn’t want to let Lando go and of course I didn’t know what the weather was doing but I am incredibly grateful to all these men and women that are here and back at the factory, because, wow! One hundred!

Q: A little sense of relief because after yesterday’s qualifying you were a little bit in the wars and emotionally it was a bit up and down, so how do you feel having finally overcome this here in Russia?

LH: Yeah, going to bed last night, obviously not the happy with the job I did yesterday. I watched the replay over and over again and there were subtle, subtle mistakes but just not ideal and I was so determined when I came in, when I woke up this morning. I woke up with a bit of pain in my neck but Ange worked on it, she’s been fantastic the last two weeks. I couldn’t have done it without here. I was just determined to do the best job I could. It was tough. I lost a lot of ground at the start, just trying to stay out trouble. Obviously Max must have done a really great job to come up to second from last, so yeah, we’ve got our work cut out.

Q: A little bit surprised to see Max so close at one time, of course he was a little bit further back but then the rain came, and some decisions about when to come in or whether to come in and put on inters?

LH: Yeah, I don’t think, I’m not sure… It would have been tough to get past Lando. He had great pace. He did the fastest lap, so it would have been tough to get past him unless we got traffic or something or he made a mistake, which he has not been doing at all. Then the rain came and it was very opportunistic and as I said the team did an amazing job so a big, big thank you to them. There’s nothing I can do about who is behind me. That’s a dream result for Max, naturally, but I’m grateful for the points.


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PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Lewis, what a race. There are so many talking points but let’s start with that headline: your 100th win. What an incredible milestone. What does it mean to you?

LH: It’s a magical moment. I could only ever have dreamed of still being here and having this opportunity to win these races and get to drive against such phenomenal talent this late in my career and to continue to building with Mercedes, of which I’m so proud of everything we’ve done, not only on track but also off and yeah, this is just a special moment for everyone that has been a part of it. I’ve had the most incredible team. Back home in my little personal team at Project 44 and then obviously you’ve got Angela, you’ve got Ellen, you’ve got Omar my driver, you’ve got Lloyd who’s here with me, my security. Honestly there are too many to name, but ones that have been with me since 18 years. Just forever grateful to them for their continued support and belief in me. To my parents also. My dad… Even just last night, just the same as the first race I had or the first championship I fought in when I was eight, my dad messaging or called me last night and he has always been that one reassuring me and continuing to support me, so yeah. And as I said, there were moments where you didn’t even know that if it was going to happen. So, I feel incredibly grateful for the amazing support I have had. Especially to Team LH. Team LH Russia and all over the world they have been absolutely magical for so long. I couldn’t have done it without them.

Q: Coming on the race itself. So much to discuss but let’s start with that call for intermediate tyres at the end. Was it yours? Was it the team’s? You looked to stay out at their first request if it was the team’s?

LH: Yeah, firstly I can’t take credit for that amazing decision, that was the team’s. For me, I was very much in no-man’s land for a long time in terms of… I didn’t really know where I was in the race. I had no idea how far Lando was ahead. I was just trying to set the best time every lap. Once I got past one of the McLarens in my second stint, getting past people, chasing down Lando. They were incredibly quick all of a sudden. He was doing a really great job. Just in those last moments, it was slippery in 5 and a little bit in 7 but then everywhere else grip was pretty good. Lando went off I think in 5 on one lap and I was like ‘OK, OK, stay out, it’s most likely going to happen again, I’ll try to catch him out’. Then they called me in and I was like: ‘Yeah, but he’s right there!’ I only had three laps to catch up 24 seconds, so it was like ‘no way’. So I wasn’t convinced the first lap. The next lap it rained more and I was definitely more convinced then, so I came in.

Q: Lewis, just a word on Lando. I saw you have a chat with him in the pen outside. Can you sympathise with how he’s feeling now?

LH: Yeah, for sure. He’s so young, he’s got so many more wins up ahead of him. He did a fantastic job yesterday in the wet. He’s doing a great job leading that team, and look, McLaren won the last race, they’ve been very hard to beat for us all, but yeah, just blind faith at the end there. I put all my faith in my team and they called me in and I believed them – and that’s part of our journey together. It could have played out any way – but I think our team did a great job in terms of understanding where the rain was coming and it was going to get worse and they were 100% worse. Of course, I had to play my role to try to get us in that position in order for that to work. Team-work makes the dream-work.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Silja Rulle – Bild) My question is to Max. You gained a lot of positions today. Michael Schumacher did this in 2011 at Spa. He gained 19 positions, I think. Is that a race you maybe thought of now, that you’ve achieved approximately the same number?

Max VERSTAPPEN: Oh, 2011? I’m not sure if I’ve seen that race! Probably Lewis knows a bit more about that. Carlos and I, we were still… 2011?

LH: Still potty training!

MV: I have no clue.

Carlos SAINZ: Where was this?

Q: Spa.

CS: Still in diapers?

LH: So odd.

MV: Close! I don’t know. Was it raining? I don’t know how it went.

LH: What year?

MV: 2011. I think we all know Michael had some great races, some really memorable races anyway.

LH: I think that was a bad race for me, so I don’t remember.

MV: So I don’t know. I didn’t think like about stuff like that. At the end of the day, you have to always just go out from your own perspective. And every year, every track, the conditions are completely different. But for me, of course, what was very important for me was just staying out of trouble. And just tried to work your way forwards but safely. And I think that’s what we did today.



Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Lewis, just about the battle with Lando before the rain arrived; you caught up to him pretty quickly but then you seemed to get a little bit stuck there. Was that the case? Do you think you would have been able to overtake him or were you just waiting, saving tyres, saving everything to attack later on before the rain came?

LH: In the initial phases I was just saving, then I looked at my dash and I saw on my pit board and I realised, I think, it was lap 42 or something like that and then all of a sudden I start to attack but just like when I was behind Daniel, you need a bit delta to be able to have an opportunity to overtake here. They were quick on the straights, very quick out of the last corner so I don’t know whether or not I would have got by or got close enough. I think I was just about to get into the DRS zone or just got into the DRS zone and then obviously the rain came so it would be have been tough to get by. It is so quick on the straight.

Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Lewis, how concerned are you that Mercedes have not maximised what they might have done over the last two races?

LH: Look, it’s not only the two races, there’s been plenty of races where we’ve not maximised, as a team, collectively, both drivers and everyone but we’re still in a fight and we can continue to improve. There are definitely things that we will try and do better moving forwards but we just won’t give up, we’ll just keep trying, keep pushing, remain hopeful and just do the work.

Q: (Laurence Edmonson – ESPN) To Lewis and Max, you’re now separated by two points, there’s about a third of the season left to run. You know the strengths and weaknesses of your cars, you know what tracks are left roughly. How do you rate your chances of winning the title?

LH: Well, undoubtedly it’s going to be tough. I think, for two thirds of the season so far they’ve had the edge. However, it’s obviously been difficult with all sorts of things, curve balls sent to both of us and our teams. There’s still everything to play for in these next races. I think they’ve got a good set of circuits coming up and I anticipate or just continue to be really close between us. Just got to be hopeful of some good races…

MV: Fifty-fifty, yes or no.

Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Lewis, this time on the 100 victories: first of all, how do you feel about that alongside all your other achievements in your fantastic career, but also it’s quite a long time since you won your 99th at Silverstone in July; how were thinking about that over the summer? Was it something that was in your mind because it’s such a big number?

LH: No, honestly, since Silverstone, that was such a special moment for me, to be in front of the home crowd obviously and obviously it was the first time that they’d been back so… but I haven’t thought of… definitely not through my break, I don’t really think about racing, I try to think about other things. The last thing you want to be thinking about is racing but of course since we’ve come back, hoping to get a good result at some point but they came out of the starting box and winning every race generally, and then obviously the difficult race we had last… so yeah, I didn’t know when it would happen or… I knew that it would be difficult, just in terms of the pace that we have. It’s good but it’s not exceptional and so we definitely have work still to do and I’m hopeful that we can try out and squeeze out maybe a little bit more performance in these next races. I hope, fingers crossed.

Source: FIA.com

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