The top three held their original starting positions on the openin🐲g lap before the race was 🦹neutralised by a Safety Car when Kimi Raikkonen lost his front wing on the main straight after a clash with Alfa Romeo teammate Antonio Giovinazzi and ended up in the Turn 1 gravel.

Hami🎃lton was caught napping at the restart by Verstappen, with the Red Bull 🉐driver taking full advantage of a great run to sweep past the Mercedes driver at Turn 1 and move into second place.

The seven-time world champion admitted he was “not happy” with his error after the race, having r🌳evealed he had been momentarily distracted by focusing on♛ teammate Valtteri Bottas ahead.

“I lost position, that’s what happened!” Hamilton jokingly responded when asked what had h𝓡appened.

“It was interesting because I was focusing naturally on Valtteri and literally just for a split-second I looked in my mirror just to see where Max was, and in that split-second, that’s when Valt🌊teri went, so I lost out to Valtteri. So that wasn’t great!

"Then I was in Valtteri’s tow and he was about to pull out, so I pulled out, and gav😼e Max Valtteri’s tow, and I was like ‘you idiot’ to myself [laughs].”

But﷽ Hamilton soon made amends by diving down the inside of Verstappen’s Red Bull a few laps later, before pulling off a spectacular pass on Bottas around the outside of Turn 1 en route to claiming his 97th career victory in F1 a🌠t Portimao.

“That was such a tough race,” Hamilton added. “Physically and mentally, just keeping everything together. It was very windy out therܫe, ver𒉰y easy to put a foot wrong

“I think Max made a mistake at some point through the lap, which was like perfect, because I knew that was going to be t🍸he lap that I could be as clos🐠e as I could be to him in the last sector.

“With Valtteri, I had to make the move early on before the tyres were destroyed. I ma💞naged to just get him into Turn 1, just right on the limit. A great race.”