Lewis Hamilton said he was too exhausted to give an interview immediately after the British Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver was asked in the post-race press conference whether he refused to speak because he was frustrated at Kimi Raikkonen for hitting him on the first lap.

“Not at all,” Hamilton answered. “See, it’s easy for you to sit and watch the race. I sweat my arse off in that race.

“I pushed absolutely one hundred, a thousand percent every bit, of energy I had. I didn’t have anything left when I was coming in.

“People expect you to get out of the car and wave and smile and all that. I gave everything I could, I was struggling to stand.

“It’s so physical nowadays and it’s different when you’re in the lead and you can control the pace. I was coming from last. I didn’t have much to give at that time, I needed to take a deep breath. I don’t have any problems with Kimi.”

Hamilton defended Mercedes’ decision not to bring him in for a pit stop during a Safety Car period at the end of the race. Mercedes left both drivers out when the Safety Car came out, which left them on old tyres but helped them move ahead of rivals who pitted.

“I can’t speak for Valtteri because I guess he was obviously in the lead,” said Hamilton. “And they believed that perhaps he would be able to hold on.

“For me the guys pitted in front of me, that was an opportunity to get up into third. I think it was the right decision.

“If I’d followed them and come in I would have come out behind them, we’d have had the equal tyres and I would have struggled to get behind them and most certainly wouldn’t have been second. These guys would have pulled away. So I think it was 100% the right decision. Particularly on my car.

“I don’t know how many laps Valtteri had had, but most likely it was the right decision for him too. But it was very hard on our tyres fighting against people with brand new tyres, for sure. In a perfect world I would have had new tyres but it wasn’t that kind of day for me.”

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2018 F1 season