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Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he turned his engine down on the "second, [or] third lap during his dominate German Grand Prix win.
The Brit is expected the serve an engine change penalty later in the season and nursed his current power unit through the 12th race of the season.
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However, in such a dominant performance, which saw Hamilton win by just under seven seconds, it is perhaps surprising that the Mercedes driver was able to turn down the performance of his engine so close to the start of the race.
"I turned down my engine pretty much from the second, third lap, I think it was," Hamilton said. "From very early on I had already turned it down and then when he said 'it's hammer time' I was able to switch it back on and eek out the gap when needed."
After the final pit stops, Hamilton's lead did shrink, but he is confident that were he not saving his engine and tyres, the gap between him and second placed finisher Daniel Ricciardo would have been bigger.
"I was 11 seconds ahead and I just took it really easy on my tyres. It got down to five, something like that, and I thought 'OK, probably got to get back on it now', which I did," he said. "I don't remember if I opened it up again after that but I felt fully in control the whole race, fortunately, which is not always a scenario you're in."
"At the end I was trying to make that engine go as far as possible and when you turn it down it's just easier on the engine, rather than using all the horses. You keep a few on the side and I was hoping to prolong the life ... You just don't know when it's going to go, none of us do. I just wanted to treat it as well as I could and that's what I was doing."
Hockenheimring - 31 July 2016
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
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C. Leclerc
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