Lewis Hamilton has described his win at the Spanish Grand Prix as one of his best drives and close to perfection. The world champion took a dominant victory in Barcelona and said he felt he had reached a high in his driving technique. Climbing from his car afterwards he also pointed to the Black Lives Matter symbol on his helmet and insisted that he would keep the pressure on to ensure the issue of racism remained in the public eye.
Hamilton finished 24 seconds in front of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen after a race in which the British driver had led every lap from pole. He had been unchallenged out front. It looked serene and Hamilton believed he had found another level.
“We all try for perfection and it is not always easy to deliver,” he said. “When I came across the line I didn’t know it was the last lap, I was like a horse with blinkers. I was just going to keep going. For me it was right up there with some of the best drives I have done.”
Hamilton has extended his lead in the world championship even further and now has four wins from six races this season but, while he has enjoyed more spectacular or hard-fought victories, he nonetheless felt this performance was outstanding.
“I felt like I was in the clear zone,” he said. “The clarity I had whilst I was driving. It is hard to say what helps you get into that space. I felt fantastic in the car, it was physically challenging but in not making mistakes and delivering lap upon lap I was in the perfect zone. I never would have thought I would have a lead of 24 seconds. All these elements were in place and I was very centred in my core.”
The drivers once more made their anti-racism gesture on the grid but Hamilton restated his determination to ensure the momentum for change would not be lost. “It is important to continue to push,” he said. “There are many, many companies here that have not held themselves accountable. And there are a lot of people out there in the world who haven’t.
“In America, for example, there are still policemen living a normal life even though they killed an innocent individual. Breonna Taylor [shot dead in her Louisville apartment], there have been so many of them where nobody has been brought to justice and we have to continue to fight for that.”
• This article was amended on 18 August 2020 because Breonna Taylor was in Louisville, not St Louis as an earlier version said.
