LEWIS HAMILTON apologised to his ticked off team-mate Charles Leclerc for failing to give him P8 back in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Monegasque driver allowed Hamilton through into eighth place with seven laps remaining to give him the chance to chase down the cars ahead, on fresher tyres.
GettyLewis Hamilton apologised to his teammate Charles Leclerc after the race[/caption]
The switch was made on the understanding that Hamilton would give the position back to Leclerc if he failed to overtake anyone.
The Brit failed to slow down sufficiently on the approach to the chequered flag and finished ahead of Leclerc.
Hamilton said: “Firstly… obviously I was quicker [in that moment of the race] but Charles was gracious to let me by.
“At the end I got the message really late on, and I was like zoned in on the car in front of me, even though there was like 0.0001% chance of passing, I was still hopeful maybe.
“And basically I did lift on the straight, and did actually brake, but he missed it by like four tenths.
“That was just a misjudgement by myself. I’ll apologise to Charles. At the end of the day that’s [only] eighth and ninth.”
Leclerc did not seem too bothered by the incident, given it was a scrap for eighth and ninth – but he did question whether Hamilton had “respected” the team’s rules.
He said: “Honestly, for a P8 or a P9 it’s not going to be a big talking point. I don’t really mind.
BEST ONLINE CASINOS – TOP SITES IN THE UK
“Obviously these are things we agree between us and the general rules of how we want to work whenever there is a swap.
“It didn’t happen, and that’s ok. It’s not like I would have been a lot happier being P8, so I don’t mind.
“I mean, there are rules that we know we’ve got to work with. And today maybe those rules were not respected.
“But, again, P8-P9, P9-P8, that’s more going forward obviously, if we are fighting for sexier positions, which I hope it would be the case, then I hope that we will work in a different way.”
