Lewis Hamilton complained of cramps during the course of F1 Portuguese GP as he is seek medical advice before the next grand prix.
Having done the hard work at start, while cruising towards a record-breaking 92nd F1 race win in Portuguese GP at Algarve, the one thing that hurt Mercedes’ Hamilton was cramps in his right calf as he revealed after the grand prix in parc ferme.
He had radioed about the troubles but carried on to score the record-breaking race win. While speaking about the pain, Hamilton explained that it happened at Turn 15 and that it was painful whenever he was applying the gas on the throttle pedal.
He is to seek some medical attention before this weekend’s Emilia Romagna GP at Imola. “It’s an incredibly physical sport but I had a cramp in my right calf,” said Hamilton. “I was lifting quite often down the straight because it was about, like, pull. Pretty painful, but I had to somehow get through it because it is what it is, you can’t lift for the whole lap. I was [actually] asking the other guys if they’d experienced anything like it.”
Elaborating more on it during the press conference, Hamilton added: “I generally didn’t drink a lot in the day and I remember getting into the car thinking I’m probably going to be dehydrated and I never drink in the race, never. I started having small cramp, it’s a very physical circuit but your throttle pedal, there’s lots of bumps, undulations, you’re applying the throttle pretty aggressively for pretty much every lap all the way and you never really get to rest.
“I was coming out of the last corner, coming round turn 15 onto the straight and I got the feeling that it was about to pull, like you’re pulling a muscle, and it popped and it hurt so much, I had to lift and I didn’t really know what to do, because every time I applied it the pain was there. But of course I can’t stay off the gas, I’ve got to keep going, so it’s just mind over matter, so I just had to keep pushing.
“It was pretty excruciating for a couple of laps, but then it started to kind of, I don’t know whether blood starts rushing to it and the adrenalin takes over but I’ve definitely got a bit of a knot in my knee, my calf. Yeah, I will seek medical attention afterwards. Angela is a real physio. A lot of trainers here claim they are real physios but they are not; most of them aren’t physios but Angela [is good],” summed up Hamilton, as Max Verstappen agreed to the Brit’s words on Angela, having once been attended by her.
Here’s how F1 Portuguese GP was won by Lewis Hamilton