Lewis Hamilton has thanked the support of his team and family after losing the Drivers’ Championship title to teammate Nico Rosberg.
The British driver won the race controversially after being asked twice, once by race engineer Pete Bonnington and again by Paddy Lowe, to increase his pace with rival cars being incredibly close to the back of Rosberg.
Surprisingly, the topic never came up on the podium despite Hamilton saying previously in the weekend in the Drivers’ Press Conference that it was not in his interest to back up Rosberg into other cars.
Hamilton used the podium interview to sum up his event and career with the German team to describe his period as world champion between the end of 2014 and now.
“I want to say thanks to my family for all their support and especially to the team for doing such a great job,” Hamilton said.
“It’s been a real privilege to be a part of this team and to achieve the success we have this year.”
He said that he is still amazed by the amount of victories he has won between 2013 and 2016 and that he isn’t disappointed by his racing in the last four events or during the season after a series of reliability issues.
“I never would have thought when I joined that I’d have that many wins, think that’s 32 wins with this team. So a big thank you to everyone here and back in the factory. I did everything we could in these last four races and that’s all I could really ask for.
“I’ll have a lot of fun tonight celebrating with the team and everyone and, you know, you can’t win them all. Obviously, we had a lot of problems this year and that’s inevitably why I’m in this position but I’m still grateful for all of the success and ups and downs we have as a team.”
Hamilton finishes the season with a total of 380 points, five points behind his teammate, with the most points and victories that a runner-up has ever amassed during one Formula One season.
