Sao Paulo: Lewis Hamilton ended a long-running Formula One feud with Felipe Massa on Sunday by walking up to the Ferrari driver after the Brazilian Grand Prix and giving him a hug.
"It's been a long hard year for all the drivers, and I hope they all have a good winter," McLaren's 2008 world champion, who retired from the race at Interlagos with a gearbox failure, told reporters.
"It was good to have a nice chat with Felipe after the race. I have great respect for him and I'm already looking forward to racing him again next year."
Massa welcomed the gesture. "I was pleased that Lewis came around to see me...it was a very nice gesture on his part," he said.
Hamilton and Massa have had a magnetic attraction on the track this season, colliding six times - most recently in India last month - and ending up barely on speaking terms. The two looked like they might be on for another coming together at Interlagos on Sunday, with Hamilton hot on Massa's heels in a battle for fifth place until a gearbox failure sidelined the Briton.
"Even in this race we've had the magnetic attraction between Lewis and Felipe, which has sometimes gone wrong," McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh told Reuters. "For a few moments there we thought it might just happen again. In fact at that point Lewis didn't have a seventh gear so although he was quite a lot quicker, getting past was going to be a bit of a challenge for him."
"So it was nice at the end of it, in an impromptu way, for Lewis to have a hug with Felipe...so hopefully that story will now end and we'll move on to a great championship fight for next year," added the Briton.
Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali agreed. "I was very pleased to see today Lewis Hamilton come in here and hugging Felipe. At the end of the day that is what it is all about. It was a good gesture and I am very happy that today this was pretty clear."
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