Lewis Hamilton made no secret of his disappointment after two setbacks cost him a shot at victory in Sunday’s Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix, saying: “When you f**k up, it’s painful”.
Hamilton lost a position to Sebastian Vettel off the line, dropping to third for the first stint before receiving a five-second time penalty for impeding Daniel Ricciardo in the pit lane.
The two setbacks proved crucial in deciding the race as Hamilton finished 6.6 seconds shy of Vettel at the chequered flag, leaving the Briton to settle for second place.
Hamilton appeared more disappointed with the defeat than he did in Australia last month when he lost out to Vettel on pure pace, with this loss instead being down to his own mistakes.
“I think over the years nothing changes and I feel pain in my heart,” Hamilton said. “People say ‘you finished second, you should be happy’ but that’s not why we exist. If anyone ever thinks a driver, or I, should be happy with second… I don’t know what to say, but that’s not why we exist.
“Of course today and when I had the second before, we had a strong good fight and I felt good on the podium, but then you think about certain things. I lost two-tenths from Turn 10 to 11 because DRS didn’t engage in qualifying and I lost half a tenth out of the last corner, so I should have easily been on pole.
“Today, I lost a position at the start – solely my fault – and then you’ve got the time lost in the pit lane. You practice and practice and practice and practice, but you only have 20 opportunities at this this year, and when you f**k up, it’s painful. There’s no other way of saying it.
“When you guys mess up in your job, I don’t know how you feel about it, but when it has potentially big consequences you feel gutted as well. I try to handle it the best way I can, but it eats you up a little bit inside and you have just got to end up trying to cope and move forward.
“In Australia I don’t remember it being any massive fault of my own, we just ran out of tyres and had to pit – it was the circumstances we were faced with. But today there were certain things that, if they were perfect, I would have been in a much better position to fight for the win and I didn’t put myself in that position.”
Latest Tweets from Crash.net & GPF1rst
Comments
