Hamilton glad ‘worst day in a long time’ is over

Lewis Hamilton has described his performance during Formula 1’s German Grand Prix as “probably the worst day I’ve had for a long time”.

Despite battling illness throughout the weekend, Hamilton took advantage of reliability problems for Ferrari during qualifying to claim pole position, and led the early stages on Sunday until his race began to unravel in changeable conditions.

Hamilton had to make an unscheduled stop for a front-wing change after a crash at the penultimate corner, before being hit with a time penalty for skipping the bollard at the pit entry, and later spinning at Turn 1.

In total, the Briton made six visits to the pitlane and ultimately finished 11th, less than a second behind the final points-paying position taken by Kevin Magnussen.

Reflecting on the race, Hamilton said: “It’s just been a bad day and a bad weekend. There’s not really much more to say really. It was probably the worst day I’ve had in the office for a long, long time.

“But you live and you learn. I don’t really know what happened today to be honest but I’m glad it’s over.

“Me hitting the wall wasn’t helpful and then putting on the slick tyres wasn’t helpful with it still raining, so it was just a combination of things.

“We’ve got more races up ahead so we just have to focus on regrouping and coming back stronger.”

Despite an uncharacteristic error-strewn race, Hamilton has preserved his 39-point lead in the championship over Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas after the Finn crashed out in the closing stages.