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Hamilton secured his second-straight podium in Montreal, but how does he see the rest of the season playing out?
Lewis Hamilton notched his second-straight podium of the 2023 Formula 1 season on Sunday, following his second-place finish in the Spanish Grand Prix with a third-place finish in the Canadian Grand Prix.
But speaking during the FIA Press Conference following the race, the Mercedes driver had a bold prediction about how the rest of the F1 season might turn out.
With Red Bull winning every race.
“It’s… you know how it is, and you know what you’re faced with, and there’s nothing I can do about their amazing performance,” Hamilton said about Red Bull’s dominance this season. “It’s likely that they will win every race, moving forwards, this year, unless the Astons and us put a lot more performance on the cars, or their car doesn’t finish.”
However, the Mercedes driver noted that he was happy to be back in the fight, and hoped that a three-way battle between himself, Max Verstappen, and Fernando Alonso could be shaping up.
“But it’s not that it’s frustrating, I just, as I said, look forward to… I’m happy to firstly be back in the mix and I’m just hoping at some stage we can have it all a little bit more level so we can get back to some of the good races we had back in 2021,” Hamilton added. “And to have all three of us in a super-tight battle would be sick.”
With Verstappen winning the Canadian Grand Prix, and finishing ahead of Alonso and Hamilton, it marked the second time this season the three former champions — and the only champions currently on the grid — finished on the podium together. It was a feat that all three drivers spoke about following the Canadian Grand Prix.
And something that all three would love to see more of.
“I remember, back in the day, I was watching these two already in Formula 1 racing each other, right. So, of course, very happy now that I’m in Formula 1 as well and racing them is probably the best thing out there,” said Verstappen. “When we can share a podium together – I think we’ve done it now a few times? – I think it’s great.”
“I mean, it’s good, it’s great. I really enjoy these battles and these podiums. It happened in Australia,, I think last time and now here, and there is a lot of respect, a lot of talent when you fight against Max, Lewis. You know that you cannot make a mistake because they will take advantage of that, and they will not make a mistake,” added Alonso.
“So, if you want to beat them, you need to be tenth-after-tenth, fastest to close that gap. It’s not anything that will benefit. It’s a very intense battle, very fair, very respectful, even in the overtaking possibility that we had on the DRS, for me when I passed Lewis, you know that you can trust what he’s doing: he will defend hard but within the limits,” continued Alonso. “I guess same at the start, when you start in the first two rows with these guys, you know that there’s a sense of awareness and respect that it’s not sometimes in other parts.”
Hamilton shared the views of the other two champions on the grid.
“Not much more to add, but I agree with Fernando, it’s a privilege to be up here fighting these two who’ve done incredible in their careers,” said Hamilton. “And this is quite an iconic top three. I don’t know if there’s been a top three like this ever before. I don’t believe there has.”
“But yeah, so hopefully there’ll be more and hopefully, as Fernando said, there’s a lot of respect between us as we were able to race so closely and trust in one another,” continued Hamilton. “I’m really hoping at some stage we have more of a level playing field in our cars, and then we’ll have a much more exciting race, I think in the future.”
Those exciting races might be coming later on this season.
Even if Hamilton has an inkling of how they will turn out.
