Lewis Hamilton talks about how emotional and exhausted he was after ‘the drive of my life’

Hamilton reflects on astonishing day at Hockenheim after victory on track from 14th on the grid before surviving post-race investigation. An “emotional” and “exhausted” Lewis Hamilton reflected on the “drive of my life” after reclaiming the lead of the F1 world championship with a hugely-dramatic and unexpected German GP win. Hamilton triumphed from the lowest grid position of his career, 14th, in extraordinary circumstances at

 

 

Hockenheim as title rival Sebastian Vettel crashed out while leading and late rain showers skewed strategy through the field. More than five hours after starting the day from the seventh row in what had been expected to be a race of damage limitation to his championship prospects, Hamilton reflected on an extraordinary Sunday as the unlikely achievement started to sink in.

 

 

 

 

“That was the drive of my life,” said Hamilton in a Mercedes video as he left the circuit.”The most trying day and the greatest day. The most emotional day, probably. I’m exhausted and I put everything I had into the race. I always do, but I managed to have more and bigger today. “I just can’t believe…well I can believe it, but things happened that I way I prayed about and the way I focused.

 

 

You throw the ball up and serve it doesn’t always go as an ace but today every single lap was as I planned. The world champion’s previous 65 career wins had never come from lower than sixth on the grid, so winning from 14th represented another significant milestone in Hamilton’s glittering career. The Mercedes driver had started that low down after a hydraulics failure struck his car in the first part of qualifying on Saturday, a failure which had appeared to leave the 33-year-old crestfallen as Vettel took pole.

 

 

But likening the stunning Sunday recovery to his early years in karting, Hamilton said: “[Saturday] was a difficult day and when I sat by the car, I wasn’t in tears or anything like that, obviously I was heartbroken, but when I stood up I was like ‘there’s nothing you can do about what’s just happened, all you can do is turn your positive energy to tomorrow and try to make something out of it’.