“I love racing hard”: Lewis Hamilton has no complaints against Kevin Magnussen’s tactics
Lewis Hamilton claimed that he loved 'racing hard' alongside Kevin Magnussen during their battle for P8 in the Sprint race at the Miami Autodrome.
It was an eventful 19 laps for the seven-time world champion as he found himself embroiled in battles from start to finish. He managed to come out of a four-car battle in Turn 1 on Lap 1 despite making contact with an Aston Martin.
After the safety car period, the Mercedes driver was on the charge to hunt down the Haas of Kevin Magnussen to get the sole point in the Sprint race and make further progress.
However, passing Magnussen proved to be a tricky task for the Brit as the Dane went over the limit while defending on multiple occasions which resulted him in getting several time penalties.
Speaking with Sky Sports, Lewis Hamilton was complimentary of the Haas F1 driver said:
"I think that's pretty honest for him - and I think that's pretty cool. We had a good race. It was a little bit on the edge in some places but that's what I love. I love racing hard and, for me, I wasn't really frustrated or anything. That's what you do to work as a team so bravo."
Kevin Magnussen chimes in on his defense against Lewis Hamilton
Kevin Magnussen stated that he 'deserved' the penalties he got during the Sprint race on Saturday as he applied 'stupid tactics' to defend against Lewis Hamilton and play the team game.
Speaking with Sky Sports, the Haas F1 driver said:
"All the penalties were well deserved - no doubt about it. But I had to play the game again. I was in a very good position behind Nico there. At the beginning of the race, I gained a lot of positions and was up in P8. I was protecting well from Lewis because I had the DRS from Nico and I had good pace."
"Then Nico cut the chicane and I lost the DRS. Nico could have given that back to give me the DRS to protect because then we would have easily been P7 and P8."
Kevin Magnussen added:
"I started using these stupid tactics which I don't like doing, but at the end of the day I did my job as a team player and Nico scored his points because I got that gap for him so Lewis and Tsunoda couldn't catch him."
Despite their hard-fought battle on the track, neither Lewis Hamilton nor Kevin Magnussen scored any points in the Sprint race as the final point place went to Yuki Tsunoda.