World champion has an eventful afternoon in Budapest but still manages to increase his championship lead over Nico Rosberg
Monday 27 July 2015 09:35, UK
Lewis Hamilton admitted he had a "very bad day at the office" after dropping from pole position to finish sixth in the Hungarian GP on Sunday.
Sebastian Vettel won an eventful, action-packed race in Budapest and as tends to be the case, a fair amount of the action centred on Hamilton.
Starting from pole position, the world champion fell to fourth place at the first corner after being passed by the Ferraris of Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen as well as Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.
He then dropped to 10th at the end of lap one after an attempt to pass Rosberg instead him forced off track and into a gravel trap.
Hamilton fought back to fourth place as the race unfolded but then collided with Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull after a Safety Car re-start on lap 49.
Forced to serve a drive-through penalty for the incident, which dropped him back to 13th, Hamilton eventually took the chequered flag in sixth place - but only after apologising to his team over the radio.
"The start wasn't actually that tricky, the Ferraris got a good start or whoever it was behind. But what a day... that was a hard afternoon," he told Sky Sports F1 afterwards.
As for his apology, Hamilton simply said it was for "the race". Yet with Rosberg finishing eighth after also colliding with Ricciardo in the closing stages, he was actually able to extend his lead in the Drivers' Championship to 21 points.
"I haven't even thought about it yet, so I don’t feel relieved at the moment," Hamilton said.
"I definitely had a bad day in the office, a very bad day in the office, but I'm grateful that the team did a great job with the calls so I was at least able to get a couple of points."
