Hamilton in ‘now or never’ Russell overtake to end Mercedes career

Lewis Hamilton has described the “now or never” overtake he made on team-mate George Russell on the final lap of his Mercedes career. 

Having started 16th after a rouge bollard scuppered his qualifying hopes, Hamilton was the only driver on the hard tyres, eventually stopping on lap 35, having been told by race engineer Peter Bonnington that a podium was possible.

He re-joined on the medium tyres in seventh place, and was told that Russell was 14s ahead, with the seven-time champion carving chunks of time out of his team-mate.

The DRS was disabled on the main straight on the final lap after Liam Lawson stopped, but Hamilton did get the overtaking aid on the run to Turn 9, sweeping around the outside of Russell to steal fourth place.

In doing so, it meant Hamilton finished fourth and out-scored Russell 697 to 695 points over their three seasons together, although he did finish a career worst-seventh in the drivers’ championship.

“He was driving great, and obviously started a lot further ahead than I did, so to catch the 14 seconds was tough, he was putting in good laps,” Hamilton told media including RacingNews365. 

“So it took perfection, like I really had to put together the best laps I could, like in Vegas, I was catching for a period of time and then stopped, so I was trying to make sure that I kept taking chunks out of that gap. 

“I only caught him at the end of that last lap, and I was like: ‘I’ve got to make this, it is now or never’, and so I just went for it.

“It is not that I needed the confidence, I’ve always had the confidence, but it really nice to finish off with a strong, hard battle and with no mistakes.”