Hamilton: 'Maybe next week a chance to join Verstappen'

"Great day," jubilated Hamilton afterwards in the press room, with Verstappen and number three Charles Leclerc next to him. "I was not expecting to be up here with these guys. Difficult weekend it started out, but yeah, I just kept my nose clean at the beginning of the race and then just really tried to manage the tyres and maximise and progress forward. When I noticed that I had to pace on Carlos, I knew that with the undercut, it really worked quite well. So the team did a great job with strategy."

Hamilton honestly admitted that the red flag - after Kevin Magnussen's crash - came at the right time for his team. "The red flag probably played into our hands in terms of getting onto the fresher tyre at the end. But I didn't know if the medium would make it that long. I was trying to see if I could close the gap with Max, but he was long, long gone, and I could only just about make an equal his times. I'm really proud of everyone."

Day and Night difference at Mercedes

After the free practice sessions, Hamilton was actually still highly critical of the Mercedes, which felt different from what it had felt a week earlier in America. What was been adjusted after qualifying? "Didn't change anything," Hamilton said. "I think the car is just quite peaky within qualifying on light fuel. But when you put a load of fuel on it, the car just handles nicer, it’s just nicer to drive, and I think we struck a really nice setup this weekend, and particularly today for the race

"I generally enjoyed it. It's not the most physical of races, being that you can't push all the way, you're saving, you're doing 200, 300 metres of lifting close to save and keep the car cool and stop it from failing. But I was definitely hoping maybe there'll be an opportunity to get closer to Max, but maybe next week," Hamilton concluded.