Following yet another Mercedes F1 struggles, Lewis Hamilton expresses his emotions during the Las Vegas Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton began the Las Vegas Excellent Prix tenth on the matrix after an unfortunate passing however experienced much more incident during the race, notwithstanding making up a couple of positions

Lewis Hamilton had a fabulous time in spite of persevering through a testing Las Vegas Fantastic Prix.

He began tenth which previously introduced a critical test. In any case, things turned out to be more regrettable at the principal corner when he had to keep away from turbulent scenes around him as a few vehicles connected and a couple length around.

“Really challenging race,” he said. “I started on the hard tyre which was tricky in the beginning and, obviously, I got hit from someone behind, I think Carlos [Sainz]. I was then just trying not to hit the cars that had spun round and I lost five or six places.”

He quickly set about recovering and made immediate progress back up the leaderboard. But another challenge presented itself when contact with Oscar Piastri left Hamilton with a puncture.

The seven-time world champion said: “After that I was making my way back and doing great, the tyres were feeling good and the pace was strong. I went up the inside of Piastri… I don’t really know exactly what happened but I got hit from behind. I think it was a racing incident, but I just felt a thud.

“I didn’t have a puncture immediately so I was accelerating but as I got alongside the pit lane entry I felt the rear was moving and thought, ‘Damn, it’s too late to come in’. So I had to do a whole slow lap and must have lost 40 seconds or something.

“I’m grateful that I was able to come back and apologies to the team for the poor qualifying yesterday. There are strengths within our car but sometimes it’s just really hard to get the performance out of it.”

Hamilton finished eighth on the road in the end and was classified seventh as a result of a time penalty for team-mate George Russell. But despite all his struggles, Hamilton came away having really enjoyed himself and felt that a much-panned race weekend in Las Vegas had gone well overall.

He closed: “I’m truly glad to have had a positive race and I’m truly thankful that the race was so great. I don’t have any idea about the way things were as a display to observe yet there was such a lot of overwhelming. It was like Baku, however better.

“I truly wasn’t anticipating that the track should be so perfect, yet the an ever increasing number of laps I did, I super cherished dashing. Bunches of extraordinary surpassing open doors. I think for every one of the people who were so pessimistic about the end of the week, saying it’s all regarding the show, yakkity yak, I think Vegas discredited them.”