Hamilton: We have been the best, most unified team

One could never count out Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes no matter how far off they seemed, but getting a podium in the Bahrain Grand Prix was always a tall ask for the World Champions given the struggles they had, but lady luck had other ideas, as Red Bull imploded on the day, with Hamilton the best placed to capitalize.

Third was the reward for Hamilton's persistence, as the seven-time World Champion credited a Ferrari, who Mercedes were fighting with back in 2017 and 2018.

"Firstly a big congratulations to Ferrari," he said. "I am so happy to see them doing well again. It is such a historic, epic team. It is so great to see Charles [Leclerc] and Carlos [Sainz] up there as well - I am so happy for them.

"It was such a difficult race," Hamilton added. "We have struggled throughout practice and this is the best result we could have got. We did the best we could and are grateful for these points.

Hamilton did not miss to give homage to his team, who he feels are unified and tenacious, a key to achieving a result like the one they got in Bahrain on Sunday.

"The guys are working hard back at the factory," he revealed. "It is not going to be a quick turnaround. I do feel like we have been the best most unified team for so long.

"We all know to keep our heads down and keep working as there is a long way to go," Hamilton concluded.

In Mercedes' press release, the seven-time World Champion acknowledged the bit of luck that came his way.

"Of course it was unfortunate for the other two drivers but we did the best we could and we are grateful for these points," he said.

"We've got to maximise our weekends and at some point, we'll be back in the fight," Hamilton insisted.

Hamilton's new teammate George Russell did not have a great start to his dream job at Mercedes, but was also there to pick up the Red Bull pieces as did his teammate, and took a strong fourth behind him.

"We definitely thought we would be able to carve our way into the field, so I am pretty pleased," Russell told Sky Sports F. "We made a good start but we know out limitations.

"It was a difficult weekend with a great result, but we know we have a lot of work to do," he warned.

"I don't know if we will find the silver bullet soon. While we will find it, it will be a few races before we unlock the true pace of the car," Russell concluded.

Russell added in the team report: "Considering we're half a second behind in qualifying and probably the same, if not more, on race pace, it was a good damage limitation weekend.

"There's a lot of potential in the car and we really need to dig down into the data and understand how to extract the performance.

"We recognise our rivals are a long way ahead of us, we know what the overall limitations of the car are, and we won't settle until we have the chance of the win," he added.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff gave some insight into the team's troubles in the team's post race media brief, and said: "I think with the Soft tyre, on pure pace before the tyre degrades, we are almost there - not where Leclerc is but with the others.

"Then degradation is too big and today we tried to do something different by putting the Hard on but it was a second slower every single lap so lesson learned.

"I think we were over winged today, we had too much drag and that is just because we are lacking parts at the moment but hopefully we can remedy that, and make progress on the top two's advantage," he maintained.

"You can see how you can manage expectations," the Austrian told the media after the race. "If we would have come in third and fourth last year it would have been very frustrating. But this year I think we are punching above our weight class.

"I think third and fourth is a fantastic result," Wolff insisted.