Lewis Hamilton called his aggressive wheel-to-wheel exchange with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen during the Formula 1 Miami Sprint “really tough” but one that he “loved”.
Hamilton had an eventful Sprint, with a race start lunge down the inside of Turn 1 contributing to multi-car chaos with Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll and Lando Norris.
The Mercedes driver wasn’t investigated in the racing incident, but he did find himself on the tail of Magnussen in a fight for eighth place and the final point throughout.
Magnussen made his VF-24 as wide as possible, gaining an advantage when he ran Hamilton wide at Turn 11 on two occasions, the latter letting Yuki Tsunoda through.
Hamilton was able to get back past Magnussen and Tsunoda to claim eighth before he was penalised post-race for speeding in the pit lane, dropping him to 16th place.
“After that [Lap 1 incident] it was just fighting, trying to get past those Haas,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 post-Sprint.
“It was really tough battling but I just enjoyed that I was racing! I wasn’t going backwards, at least. The penalty definitely sucks but, it’s one point.”
Magnussen, meanwhile, didn’t appraise the battle and was instead left frustrated that he was made to defend in order to benefit his Haas team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.
“I was in a very good position behind Nico there,” he said.
“At the beginning of the race, I gained a lot of positions, I was up in P8. I protected well from Lewis [Hamilton], because I had DRS from Nico [Hulkenberg] and I had good pace, I felt.
“But then Nico cut the chicane, and I lost the DRS and Nico could have given that back to give me the DRS to protect, because then we would have easily been P7 and P8.
“Instead I was really vulnerable to Lewis, started fighting with him like crazy.
“I had to just create the gap like I did in Jeddah and start using these stupid tactics, which I don’t like doing.
“But at the end of the day I did my job as a team player and Nico scored his points because I got that gap for him, so Lewis and [Yuki] Tsunoda couldn’t catch him. So not the way I like to go racing at all, but what I had to do today.”
Magnussen was handed a total of 25 seconds worth of penalties for his antics but accepted that the Stewards were right to relegate him to the last classified runner.
“All the penalties were well-deserved – no doubt about it,” he accepted.
Hamilton, although agitated in the heat of the moment over team radio, appreciated Magnussen’s frankness once out of the car.
“I think it’s really honest of him and I think it’s pretty cool,” he said. “We had a good race, it was a little bit on the edge in some places but that’s what I love! I love racing hard.”
“I wasn’t really pissed- sorry, frustrated or anything! But yeah, that’s what you do to work as a team so, bravo.”
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