Lewis Hamilton reacted to his fierce on-track battle with Max Verstappen after the US Grand Prix, with his conversation with the Dutchman and Charles Leclerc caught by the TV cameras.
Hamilton and Verstappen reignited their 2021 rivalry briefly with a strong fight for the lead in the final few laps of the race. The Brit had the lead for a while after a Red Bull pit stop error, but in the end he was unable to prevent the faster car from overtaking him.
Still, second place matches his strongest result of the season so far, even though he would have been disappointed to miss out on the win having come so close. Afterwards, as they waited for the podium, the top three drivers chatted about the race.
Hamilton and Leclerc were in the room before Verstappen made his way there. Before he arrived, the Brit turned to the Ferrari driver and said: "It's so hard to stay ahead of him," referring to that late battle with the Red Bull racer.
"Were you losing the front or the rear?" asked Leclerc before Hamilton indicated it was the latter. The Mercedes driver also informed the Monegasque that his team-mate Carlos Sainz had been taken out by George Russell, as a replay of the incident came onto the TV screen.
But the conversation soon turned back to Verstappen as he entered the room. Hamilton said to him: "You came from so far back! We can't compete with you on the straights. The conversation concluded with all three drivers agreeing that Turn 11 was "so bad".
The victory secured the constructors' championship for Red Bull. Reacting to his performance and to that achievement, Verstappen paid tribute to Red Bull founder and owner Dietrich Mateschitz, who died on the eve of the race.
"It was a tough one. It was all looking good but then the pit stop was a bit longer than we would have liked, so I had to fight my way forward again," he said. "We gave it everything out there today, and of course it's a very difficult weekend for us, so this one is definitely dedicated to Dietrich.
"We had a big chance to win the constructors' here, and you want to do that in style, and I think we did that today. This is a great track for battling. If you pass in one corner, you can come back in the next, and it's really enjoyable to drive here."
