Hamilton Compliments Verstappen As He Hopes Mercedes Can Close Gap To Red Bull In 2024
F1Sunday, 10 December 2023 at 07:00
Updated at Sunday, 10 December 2023 at 10:57
The seven-time World Champion praised Verstappen and Red Bull during his trophy acceptance speech at the FIA Gala Prize Giving Ceremony in 2023.
Mercedes F1 driver Lewis Hamilton attended the 2023 FIA Gala as he received the trophy for his third place in the Drivers' Championship behind the two Red Bull drivers.
It has been another challenging season for the 38-year-old who was used to competing for the first place but just had not pace in his car to do so this year.
While Red Bull completely dominated, Lewis Hamilton managed to show his qualities as the best driver outside of Red Bull with 234 points in the Drivers' Championship which was enough for the third place.
As he was accepting the trophy, the Mercedes driver admitted the 2023 season has been challenging but congratulated the winners:
"For everyone it's been a very, very long season and very much looking forward to the winter break. We're working very, very hard on making sure we come back strong next year, I have to say a big congratulations to Red Bull and to Max and Checo, they've done an incredible job this year."
Max Verstappen has been the only driver on the grid in 2023 to finish every single race in the season. Not only that, he finished every single race inside the points and won 19 out of 22 in total.
Hamilton recognized the consistency of the triple World Champion and admitted there is a lot of work that has to be done if Mercedes wants to catch up with Red Bull.
Max was faultless and the team really raised the bar and we have a lot of work to close that gap, but I truly do believe that we can close that gap.
The seven-time World Champion remembered the beginning of the season when Mercedes decided to give one more chance to the old car concept, which was not a good idea.
"Thank you also to my team, because they never gave up this year. We started off with a sister basically of previous years' car which was not good and not fun to drive for most of the year."
In the end, Mercedes finished the 2023 season on a high note as the team snatched second place from Ferrari by 3 points in the last race. Hamilton concluded:
"But no one gave up, everyone continued to show up every day and that was what was most inspiring and so I hope that we comeback next year."
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