Hamilton hails Mercedes reliability after second place in 300th race
Monday, 25 July 2022
The seven-time world champion has faced a variety of challenges this season.
Lewis Hamilton dubbed a second-place finish at the French Grand Prix as a "great result" while revealing he encountered issues with his drinks bottle during the 300th Formula 1® race of his career.
The seven-time champion leapfrogged Red Bull's Sergio Perez at the start to take third place, then rising to second after Ferrari's Charles Leclerc crashed out while in the lead.
It caps off another weekend of resurgence for Hamilton, who has encountered numerous problems across the 2022 season, with the podium representing his fourth in a row.
"What a great result, considering we've been so far off these guys all weekend," he said on the grid after the race.
"Reliability is one thing that my team has been amazing at, so a huge congratulations to the team back at the factory and the team here, without them we couldn't get this podium, and George [Russell] did an amazing job today as well."
Hamilton may not have had problems with the car, but he did reveal a different sort of issue during one of the hottest races of the season as his drinks bottle was broken.
"I didn't see my weight just now but I imagine [I lost] about three kilos. It's enough, I'm looking forward to downing the rest of this drink!"
Hamilton's stellar drive came on the back of a disappointing build-up for Mercedes, with a new package introduced for the French Grand Prix that did not result in what the team would have expected.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff highlighted that Hamilton has remained positive throughout the variety of challenges this season, including the issues in France prior to Sunday's race.
"Sometimes we've been talking about what would happen if we were not winning again, how we could recover, and we had some really difficult times at the beginning of the year," he told Sky Sports.
"In a way, we've all set into the situation that we've been handed and he is absolutely on it, he keeps pushing the team, not just driving the car, he has a positive mindset.
"Even if the day is really grim, like yesterday and we are tenths off, he never stops pushing."
YESSS LEWIS!!!!!!!! P2 in race 300!!!!! 👏👏👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/gWP486vbed
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) July 24, 2022
