Question: You said on Sunday that this win ranked up there with your 2008 wins at Monaco and Silverstone - what made it so special?
Lewis Hamilton: For me, it wasn’t just an attacking race, although there was a big element of pure racing, which I love. Those two wins weren’t just about aggression either - I won those races through pure speed but also with intelligence, and with support from everyone in the pit lane. They were really complete race wins - and they’re the most satisfying.
So, on the one hand, China was great because we made it work out on the track - it’s always sweeter to win a race when you’ve overtaken the cars ahead. And in my final stint I got past Nico (Rosberg), Felipe (Massa) and Sebastian (Vettel) for the win, which hopefully was great for all the fans watching. But it was also really satisfying because we worked to make the race strategy work from the moment we arrived at the track on Thursday. After Malaysia, I really wanted to make sure we’d have enough tyres for the race, so I went into our first engineering meeting of the weekend with my mind made up that I wanted to hold onto my tyres and keep as many sets as fresh for the race.
The best thing about Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is the way we work as a team. Our teamwork is incredible. And it would have been easy for the engineers to have just looked at me and said, ‘No’, but they always listen and they always find a way of making it work. We really collaborated to make everything work, even on Friday night, when we pulled the car to bits to improve the car - we always keep pushing.
So not only did we have a good car and a good strategy going into the race, but we were aggressive and we kept pushing throughout the race. You know, the mechanics and the pit crew worked perfectly and my engineers were brilliant.
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