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Hamilton fears Bottas swap will ‘bite in the backside’

Lewis Hamilton fears he could come to regret the decision to give up his podium finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix to Valtteri Bottas after the two drivers swapped positions on the final corner.

Bottas ran third behind Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen during the first-half of the Hungaroring race, but ceded the position to a fast approaching Hamilton on the instruction of Mercedes to give him the opportunity to attack them.

Though Hamilton wasn't able to make a move on the cars ahead he had developed a sizeable gap over the Bottas, raising speculation the gulf between the two would convince him to hold the position and not give third back as originally planned.

Hamilton would eventually slow on the final corner to allow Bottas into third position, a gesture he was praised for but one he admits may trouble him later in the season.

"In my mind I want to win the championship the right way," he said. "I don't know whether that will come back to bite me in the backside or not but I said at the beginning of the year I want to win it the right way. It was the right way to do things.

"It's kind of a grey area because if I let him by and pulled him along and we were two seconds apart, then that's a much easier thing to let him back. But obviously I was seven seconds up ahead and the team are in a difficult position.

"It really shows, hopefully, that I'm a man of my word and also that I am a team player. I am just as much a part of the team as anyone else and I think we are working better together than we ever have. I think in life if you do good things, good things do come around back to you. Hopefully in the future it will pay dividends."

Zdroj: crash.net