Valtteri Bottas has shed some light upon how his former team-mate Lewis Hamilton reacted to missing out on the 2021 Formula 1 title in heartbreaking and controversial circumstances.
The Brit was beaten to the chequered flag by Max Verstappen, who overtook him on the final lap of the race. But he was only able to do so after race director Michael Masi failed to properly apply the rules after a safety car restart.
After initial protests from Mercedes that were dismissed, Hamilton went silent over the off-season sparking rumours of retirement. He eventually returned to social media and to the track, but only after a bleak couple of months out of the public eye.
One of the people who did interact with him in that time was Bottas, who was still contracted to the Silver Arrows until the end of December. They had some team events together before he departed, and has revealed what Hamilton was like in private in the days and weeks after the fiasco.
"We just saw each other after the season when we had some team events," the Finn told Crash. "We had a brief chat, and yeah, he was pretty quiet about it. He just couldn't believe it had happened.
"I can be pretty composed if I need to, but inside for sure he would have had a tough time within himself. It took him a long time to recover from that.
"I'm sure. I think it would be the same for everyone who is battling for the title and you lose it in the last race, with, let's say, special circumstances. It's a hard one to accept. It can put you off in terms of how much you love the sport."
Bottas' insight comes after Hamilton opened up publicly for the first time on his feelings about that final race last year. "You see things start to unfold and my worst fears came alive," he told Vanity Fair, adding that he felt he had been "cheated" out of the title.
He went on to say: "It was one of the toughest moments, I would say, that I've had in a long, long time. I knew what had happened. I knew what decisions had been made and why. Yes, I knew that something wasn't right."
