Lewis Hamilton made sure to congratulate his ‘family’ at McLaren after the British Grand Prix, where he took P3 behind Lando Norris.
The seven-time world champion fought hard to take third place after McLaren’s upgrades sent the papaya cars flying around Silverstone.
His first thanks went to the incredibly passionate crowd at the track, with Hamilton telling Sky Sports’ David Coulthard: “Once again, Silverstone put on a great, an amazing show. We’ve got the greatest crowd here and so big big thank you to everyone for supporting.
“I think I felt the energy. I felt the support, which this is the reason we got back up there.”
Hamilton was pleased with his result but keen to offer his congratulations to McLaren and Norris in particular.
He said: “Also, I just want to say a big congratulations to Lando and to McLaren. Where it was my family, it’s where I first started.
“To see them back up there looking so strong, I mean that thing was rapid through the high-speed corners. I was just wow. I couldn’t keep up, but we had a good little battle on the restart. The start wasn’t so great for me, but the long run on the medium was really great.”
Though perhaps Hamilton wanted more from the race, having fought hard for P2 with Norris, he was pleased with another podium result.
He said: “I think this is a good positive for us as a team, to know that we’re not that far away, we’ve just got to keep on pushing and we can catch those guys up front.
“Once he (Norris) goes through turn 13 and 15, he’s gone. We had good performance in the low speed. We had a good little battle there, just didn’t have the grunt on the straight.
“I’m really happy to start seventh and come third, is a mega mega job. So, big thank you to my team. Great pitstops, great work all weekend, and I love this crowd!”