Lewis Hamilton admitted he was lucky to win the Bahrain Grand Prix after Charles Leclerc suffered a technical problem while leading.

The Ferrari driver had a comfortable lead over Hamilton when he suffered a suspected MGU-H fault in the closing stages of the race. Hamilton caught the Ferrari and passed Leclerc with 10 laps to go. He admitted it felt “weird” to pass the ailing Ferrari driver.

“Ultimately you want to pass someone because you’re quicker than them and through a fight,” said Hamilton. “I went past Charles down on the back straight I think, and I raised my hand to him because there was nothing I could do. I obviously didn’t have any problems so it definitely feels weird.

“Honestly you can’t believe your luck in those scenarios. But what can you do? You can’t deny yourself, you just have to keep doing what you’re doing and pushing ahead. I’ve been in positions like that, I’ve been in the lead many times when the car has stopped. I know how it feels.”

Hamilton said Leclerc shuld focus on the positive aspects of his performance in Bahrain, including how he firmly overshadowed his multiple world champion team mate Sebastian Vettel.

“It’s always good to look at the glass half-full because today’s got some great points even though they had that problem,” said Hamilton.

“He was an outlier all weekend. Even to his team mate he was so much faster than his team mate all weekend. He’s got so many positives to take from it and we have a lot of work to do to try and keep up with him.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2019 F1 season