Lewis Hamilton has rowed back on sarcastic radio messages he made during Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix, saying \u200bhe had not presented the “best version” of himself.<\/p>\n
The \u200cseven-times Formula One world champion was frustrated at being held up behind Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in the race at Zandvoort and felt \u200bhe missed out on a podium because of the \u200bteam’s delay in acting.<\/p>\n
“Big waste of time guys, good \u2060job,\u201d he said sarcastically after Leclerc eventually pitted.<\/p>\n
Looking back \u200bon the weekend, Hamilton praised the team in an Instagram \u200bpost for their work at the factory in bringing updates and improving the car.<\/p>\n
“I’ve listened back to some of my radio and television \u200bcomments,” said the Briton. “In the heat of the moment \u200bfrustration can come out, especially when you care as deeply as I \u200cdo. \u2060But that wasn’t the best version of me. I take responsibility for that, and I’ll be better.”<\/p>\n
Hamilton, who finished fourth in the race and less than a second behind Mercedes’ \u200bGeorge Russell, \u200bsaid he believed \u2060in the team and what Ferrari was building for the future.<\/p>\n
“The direction is clear. The \u200bbelief is there. And the fight is \u200babsolutely still \u2060on,” he said.<\/p>\n
Hamilton and Russell are tied on points, with the Mercedes driver ahead on race wins in second place \u2060overall \u200band 59 behind his teammate Kimi \u200bAntonelli.<\/p>\n
The next race is in Italy at Monza, a home round for both \u200bFerrari and Antonelli.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13784,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-43744","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Hamilton finished fourth in the race.","published_date":"","news_description":"Hamilton finished fourth in the race.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43745,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43744\/revisions\/43745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}