Lewis Hamilton says he's a "man of his word" after he kept his promise to allow Valtteri Bottas to retake position if he couldn't pass the Ferraris, despite it damaging his championship hopes.
Hamilton found himself stuck behind Bottas, unable to pass at the difficult to overtake Hungaroring, whilst title rival Sebastian Vettel slowed in the lead with a steering issue. Mercedes requested that Bottas let the Briton though, as long as Hamilton reversed positions in the event he failed to pass Kimi Räikkönen and/or Vettel.
Despite getting close on a number of occasions, Hamilton couldn't get ahead and on the final corner of the final lap, slowed to allow his team-mate to reclaim the final podium position, ultimately costing himself three extra championship points.
"It's tough in the championship but I'm a man of my word," said Hamilton, who now sits 14 points adrift of Vettel. "I did say that if I can't overtake them I would let him back through.
"Slowing down seven seconds was tough and I was nervous of losing a place to Verstappen but fortunately I didn't."
Hamilton's race was impacted by a loss of communication with his team, which meant he was unable to communicate tyre life to his engineer, nor strategy options until the issue was resolved.
"It wasn't perfect [losing radio] but it came back in the end. We managed it the best way we could.
"I don't know why Ferrari were slow. I thought they were worried about the tyres not going the distance and so were slow but would speed up later but they didn't," he added.
"I had all this pace but I was stuck behind Valtteri and couldn't tell the team I had all this speed to go catch them up. I don't know how many laps I was behind but my tyres took a lot of beating."
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