Lewis Hamilton defends attempt to retire from F1 Spanish Grand Prix after early puncture

Lewis Hamilton has insisted he was not being “defeatist” when instructing Mercedes to retire his car early on in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.

A tangle with Kevin Magnussen booted the Brit from sixth to 19th on lap one of the Formula One race, at which point he recommended dropping out of the GP to save the engine.

However, Hamilton performed a solid turnaround to bring the car home in fifth place, having at one point even overtaken the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz to reach fourth before a late leakage issue slowed his car down.

He said afterwards: “It’s not being defeatist, it was just I was literally 30 seconds behind.”

Engine penalties will likely be a factor later in the season but Hamilton’s bounceback, plus a podium finish for George Russell, marked a potentially key turning point in Mercedes’ season.

Hamilton added: “I don’t know if reliability is an issue. We’ve already seen at the end there was something. I was like, we might as well just save the engine so we live to fight another day.

“But I’m glad we didn’t, and it just shows you never stop, you never give up, and that’s what I did.”