😼Hamilton's life was made easier when Max Verst𝐆appen and Valtteri Bottas were hit with grid penalties ahead of the race for yellow flag incidents in qualifying.

This promoted Pꦦierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso to second and third on the grid𓂃 - both started on the soft tyre, while Hamilton was on the mediums.

Typically, the softer tyres has a small advanta🎐ge at the start with many expecting Hamilton to be challenged by the duo behind into the first corner.

Hamilton said that the🔴re was “a little bit to gain from the soft꧂” at the start of the race but had it covered when defending the lead of the race.

“A little bit, there’s a little ꦓbit to gain from the soft, but I felt I wasn’t massively under threat,” Hamilton said. “I managed to cover the ground just off the start and after that was kind of just head down and focused on bridging the gap.

“I saw at Turn 6 Max🐓 was already in fourth so knew he was past my teammate, didn’t know Valtteri had had such a bad getaway, then after that was just focused on trying to maximise the pointꦍs for the team.

“🅰I was feelꦏing strong, I think they had relatively decent pace but I was able to manage the pace, so it wasn’t a problem.”

Back-to-back wins for Hamilton has allowed h♏im to close the gap to Verstappen to just ♔eight points with two rounds to go.

“It was just an amazing, this past three weeks ha🍌ve been so difficult for everyone, with some big distances between all the races and the team did such an amazing job, particularly these past two races,” he added.

“Today the race was made a lot easier with the penalties the guys got for the mistake they made yesterday. That made it a lot more straightforward and yeah ൲was just managing the gap at the front and keeping the car safe, and maximise and bring the car home.”

Un🍷like Bottas who suffered a puncture on Lap 33, Hamilton had no concerns about his tyres.

“Nope, I was managing quite well, wasn’t on any of the kerbs, so wasn’t concerning for me,” he explained𒈔.

“I assumed they were coming from people running on the kerbs but I was neveℱr near an♔y of them, wasn’t an issue. Grateful for my team, thanks to the men and women back at the factories who have been pushing so much to bridge the gap to our competitors.

“It’s a great feeling but there’s no time to celebrate, no time to rest, we keep our head down and keep💝 chasing.”