Lewis Hamilton thanked his team for the reliability of his car after taking an unexpected podium finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix when both Red Bull drivers retired.
The Mercedes driver was on course for fifth place for much of the race until Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez encountered problems in the final laps. Verstappen pulled into the pits with three laps to go after slowing, while Perez’s car spun to a stop at turn one on the final lap, its engine having seized.
Hamilton was the first driver to pass the stationary Red Bull on his way to third place behind the Ferrari drivers.
“Mega, mega job,” he told his team on the radio. “Thank you so much for the hard work. Reliability is so important, appreciate it.”
Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington told him: “We think Verstappen had an issue with the ERS system. Perez, not sure what happened to them.”
Speaking after the race, Hamilton said the Red Bull drivers had been unlucky to encounter problems so close to the…