Hamilton on battling with Verstappen: "Tyre management was the key."

"I was trying to understand Max Verstappen's strategy. I thought he was falling back to stay away from the wake of my car to push later. Maybe they could go on longer than us. From our lung runs, I didn't know if they could go on longer than us. So I really had to make sure to keep him behind me."

"As the temperature in my tires stabilized, I felt like I could apply more pressure. I could see he was pushing, but then he had to go in earlier. Tire management was the key today," said Hamilton in front of the Ziggo Sport camera.

Changing the tyres didn't go well at Mercedes alone. The Brit lost quite a lot of time at the pit stop. "It wasn't a great pit stop, I don't know what happened exactly. I know the guys did a great job with the second pit stop. I'm working very hard to create that gap and if you lose time because of something like that it's not ideal. But we got away with it."

More exciting fight than imagined

Despite the gap with Verstappen in the general classification, Hamilton keeps an eye on the Dutchman. "If Max hadn't dropped out in the first Grand Prix he would only have been 12 points behind me. It is a lot closer than people think. In the race they will come with us very well," said Hamilton at Sky Sports.

The six-time world champion felt like a fish in the water at the Barcelona circuit. "Today I really felt like I was at a completely different level (from the competition, ed.). I really haven't had this feeling for a very long time," Hamilton said.