His main rival in the championship starting last after an engine change, Lewis Hamilton was seen as the favorite at the start of this weekend.<\/p>\n
But a failed qualification and a difficult start seemed to bring back bad memories of Monza. Finally, the British driver was able to refocus to move up from 7th place and win the race in a crazy finish (his 100th career victory), as a pit stop in the final laps to switch to intermediate tires allowed him to definitively take the lead over Lando Norris who had gambled on staying on slick tires.<\/p>\n
It took me a long time to reach the hundred victories, and I wasn’t even sure it would happen one day (to win his 100th victory, editor’s note). The team made the right choice in the end, I am extremely grateful to all these men and women who are here and at the factory, because 100 victories is incredible.<\/p>\n
Last night I was not very happy with the work I had done and I watched the replays several times in a row. This morning, despite my neck pains, I was really determined to do my best. And it was difficult because I lost a lot of ground at the start by trying to stay out of trouble.<\/p>\n
\u00ab Lando (Norris) did an extraordinary job for McLaren. I’m not sure I would have managed to overtake him without the rain because he had a strong pace and set the fastest lap of the race. Fortunately, the team did a great job by bringing me into the pit stop (to put on intermediate tires, ed.). It has a special feeling to see my former team at the front of the field, they are doing a great job and they won the last race. Plus, McLaren is powered by Mercedes, it’s nice to see them back together. And Max (Verstappen) really had to do a very good job to finish second after starting from the back of the grid. \u00bb<\/p>\n
Thanks to this victory, the Mercedes driver has taken back the lead of the drivers’ championship from the Dutchman by just two small points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a forgettable end to Q3 yesterday, the seven-time world champion turned things around to secure his 100th victory in Formula 1 in epic conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":36090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[500,841,1329],"class_list":["post-7869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-grand-prix-de-russie","tag-hamilton","tag-record"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n