Lewis Hamilton has apologized to his team Mercedes after his profanity-filled outburst after being passed by Dutch Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen on Sunday.
Hamilton inherited the lead under a safety car called after Valtteri Bottas retired on the main straight, but Verstappen along with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Mercedes teammate George Russell also pitted for a change to soft tyres.
Hamilton remained on the medium tyres which were clearly slower, with Verstappen overtaking him upon the restart, while Russell and Leclerc also mowed down the seven-time world champion who finished fourth.
“I cant believe you guys **ed me. I cant tell you how **ed I am,” Hamilton was overheard yelling into the radio.
After the race, Hamilton clarified: “My apologies to the team because I don’t even remember what I said.
“It was like I just lost it for a second, but I think they know its just so much passion.
“We were just challenged with a lot of things, with the VSCs, and the safety cars. I think the strategy and the car had been so good up on to that point, the pit stops were fantastic, the best that we had had all year.
“It was geeing me up, I was thinking the guys are really, really on it today, we are all on it. I was really hopeful that we were going to get a one-two together as a team.”
Verstappen triumphed ahead of Russell, who appeared to make the crucial pit call on his own, and Leclerc who rounded out the podium.
The result reinforces Verstappen’s stronghold on the Drivers’ F1 championship, moving to 310 points, with Leclerc tied for points with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez on 201, but ahead on race wins.
Verstappen also gave his home fans, largely adorned in the Dutch orange, at Zandvoort the perfect celebration.
“It was not a straightforward race, so I think its extra rewarding to win the race,” Verstappen said.
“We couldn’t really do our preferred strategy to the end. That made it a little bit more difficult for us up until the last safety car, because I think we were just a bit more competitive on the softer compounds.
“But then of course with that late safety car we could switch back to the preferred tyre, the soft one, and could get back into the lead.”
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was the big loser of the day, with a botched pit stop taking 12.7 seconds, while he copped a five-second penalty for an unsafe release in the pits, meaning he fell back to eighth after starting third on the grid.
Sainz called it a “mess” but said he…
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