Lewis Hamilton feels ‘destroyed’ but ‘grateful to be alive’ after returning to action in Abu Dhabi

Lewis Hamilton said he was glad to be alive after finishing third in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and promised to wrap up his new Mercedes contract before Christmas.

The race itself, the last of this Covid-mangled season, should be filed alongside jokes without punchlines — a waste of energy on a track as suited to Formula One racing as a Sainsbury’s car park.

But the seven-time world champion, who is seeking a new £40million-a-year deal, had reason enough to enjoy being out there given where he had been a week before — in bed with Covid-19 watching stand-in George Russell hot-rodding his car.

Lewis Hamilton admitted that he was physically ‘destroyed’ following his first F1 race back

The toll the illness had taken on Hamilton was clear by the way his team T-shirt hung off him. He looked as if he’d lost about a stone. Plenty of his upper body bulk had withered away.

Speaking after Max Verstappen won comfortably for Red Bull, 16 seconds ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton said: ‘My body is not feeling great. But on the bright side, I made it through. I didn’t think any time last week that I’d be here.

‘I’m just truly grateful for my health and to be alive, and looking forward to recovering and training again to get my body back to where it should be.

‘It was a really hard race for me. All year physically I’ve been fine, but today I definitely wasn’t. I’m just glad it’s over. The illness hit me massively. I don’t think I’ve ever been so blown.’

Now to his contract situation, a riddle that makes the Brexit talks look like a piece of cake. This saga has dragged on for months, but there seems only one conclusion — a deal, and not a bad one for Lewis, even if his demands are slightly trimmed.

Hamilton finished third in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as he returned following coronavirus

Seven-time world champion Hamilton admitted on Sunday  that he is ‘grateful’ to be alive

After Covid-19 delayed negotiations, he now seems ready to crack out his pen. ‘I’d like to get it done before Christmas,’ he said. ‘I plan to be here next year.

‘We as a team have more to do together, more to achieve both in the sport and outside it too. I hope we begin discussions this week.’

Toto Wolff, his boss, said: ‘It is going to happen. We need to sit down, maybe virtually, maybe in real life.’

As for the race, Wolff summed it up by revealing that he was sent more sleep emojis to his phone than he has ever received before. ‘The infrastructure here is spectacular,’ said the Austrian of the lavish Yas Island setting. ‘But it is just so difficult to overtake, even if the car in front is slower. Maybe there are track configurations we could look at which would make it more interesting.’

The highlight, if it can be called that, was Sergio Perez’s Racing Point packing up 10 laps into the 55. The Mexican parked up outside the W Hotel and the safety car was deployed. Most seized the chance to grab a ‘free’ pit stop, including Hamilton, leaving a long stint on hard rubber ahead of them.

Hamilton looked as though he’d lost some muscle mass after his recovery from coronavirus

The interruption did nothing to change the complexion of the podium places.

Retirement was a shame for Perez, winner a week ago at the Sakhir race in Bahrain, for this was his last outing for the Silverstone-based team, which is about to be re-christened Aston Martin. He deserves a seat somewhere on the grid but does not yet have one. His trudge back to the paddock may have been his final Formula One act.

Verstappen, who started on pole, again opened up a decent lead en route to his second win of a gutsy campaign.

A word on McLaren who, under the leadership of Zak Brown, wrapped up third place in the constructors’ championship, their best result since 2012. It came on the day American investment firm MSP Capital headed a consortium that took a minority £185million stake in the team. Their shareholding will rise from an initial 15 per cent to 33 per cent by the end of 2022.

The injection is a real boost after Covid-19 caused McLaren Group’s revenues to fall substantially.

On the track, their British driver Lando Norris finished fifth and his Ferrari-bound team-mate Carlos Sainz sixth to complete a season of renaissance for a proud organisation that only a couple of years ago were paying their staff bonuses in the form of Freddo chocolate bars.