18 June 2023 , 20:36
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Lewis Hamilton admitted he was no match for Max Verstappen at the end of an awkward conversation after the Canadian Grand Prix.
Verstappen won the Montreal race to mark Red Bull's 100th victory in Formula 1. And it was the Dutchman's 41st victory, bringing him level with Ayrton Senna in the all-time list.
He barely broke a sweat in achieving that feat in Canada. The real effort came behind him as Hamilton tried everything he could to get the better of his old rival Fernando Alonso.
Unfortunately for the Brit, he could not manage it. But he took third place which was a welcome result on a track which Mercedes expected would be difficult for them.
He quickly climbed after his car to celebrate the podium with his team. And then he made his way to the cool down room to wait for the podium ceremony, where Verstappen was already seated.
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With Alonso not yet there, it was left to the two F1 rivals to make small talk. And they did so, almost begrudgingly, as Hamilton broke the silence to ask Verstappen about how his car had felt on the track.
"Was your car stiff? Did it bounce a lot?" he asked the Red Bull racer. And the reply was: "Yeah. I mean, the track is also very bumpy." Hamilton followed that up with a question about tyre degradation.
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen made small talk after the Canadian Grand Prix (Sky Sports)Verstappen replied: "It's quite high here, yeah. Especially at turns three and four when you try to ride the kerbs. It's very hard with these cars." He then asked Hamilton: "You had a good last stint? Initially it really kicked on, compared to the first medium, right?"
And that was when the Mercedes racer admitted that, for all his team's progress in recent weeks in terms of car performance, they remain some way off the Red Bulls in a straight fight. He replied: "Yeah, it was a bit better, like. Pretty decent.
"Yeah, we struggled in the first stint, we struggle in the low-speed corners. That's where you were just destroying me, out of the low-speed. Actually, pretty much all of them – your rear end is insane."