An exhausted Lewis Hamilton admitted he felt "destroyed" by COVID-19 in his first race back since recovering from the virus, finishing third for champions Mercedes in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
The seven-time world champion conceded he wasn't at his best and was relieved to be done with the race after battling through a bout of coronavirus that saw him sidelined from last weekend's Sakhir Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
"You can't win them all," he said, after claiming third behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.<\/p>\n
"And, considering the last couple of weeks that I have had, I am really genuinely happy with the weekend.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
"I was not 100 per cent. It was not as good as we would have liked, but congratulations to Max. It was such a really hard race for me physically.<\/p>\n
"All year, physically, I have been fine, but today I definitely wasn't. I am just glad it's over.<\/p>\n
"A big thank you to the team for their continued support \u2014 it's still a fantastic result to get two podium finishes."<\/p>\n
Hamilton insisted his performance at Yas Marina circuit was "massively" impacted by his recent illness, despite notching his 165th<\/sup> podium finish.<\/p>\n "I don't think I have ever been so blown, but look on the bright side \u2014 I made it through and I didn't even think I would be here, last week," he said.<\/p>\n "Now, I am looking forward to recovering, getting back into training and back to where I know I should be. I hope and pray that in 2022, the cars are better to follow.<\/p>\n "I don't know if it was a boring race to watch, but once you get within two seconds you are sliding around and in turbulence the whole time. And, of course, we need good tyres!"<\/p>\n In a later interview, Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 that he felt "destroyed" by the coronavirus.<\/p>\n "COVID is not a joke and people all over the world are out there losing their lives \u2014 it should not be treated that way. It's really tough," he said.<\/p>\n "I find it very strange to see world leaders laughing it off because it's not funny."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An exhausted Lewis Hamilton admitted he felt "destroyed" by COVID-19 in his first race back since recovering from the virus, finishing third for champions Mercedes […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9266"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9268,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9266\/revisions\/9268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hamilton](\"https:\/\/vms-network-images-prod.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/2020\/12\/330003\/pickerImage.jpg\")
<\/p>\n