Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton completed an “iconic” podium on Sunday at the Canadian Grand Prix, with the trio boasting 11 titles between them.
For the third time, the trio found themselves on the podium together, something Hamilton admitted was a “privilege”.
Verstappen won the race to claim his sixth win of 2023, whilst it also marked the 41st of his F1 career, putting him level with three-time World Champion Ayrton Senna.
The reigning World Champion finished just under 10 seconds ahead of Alonso, who enjoyed a great scrap with his former McLaren team-mate for a large portion of the race.
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Hamilton had overtaken Alonso for second on the opening lap; however, he lost the spot to the Aston Martin driver mid-race.
All three drivers were full of praise for one another in the post-race press conference, which was started by Hamilton taking an iconic selfie of the trio.
The three drivers were first on the podium together at the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix; however, at that point in time Verstappen was yet to claim a Drivers’ Championship.
They then all featured on the podium again earlier this season, at the Australian Grand Prix, prior to Sunday’s race at the Circuit de Gilles-Villeneuve.
Hamilton was honoured to be on a podium with Verstappen and Alonso, with the seven-time World Champion himself having questioned if there’d ever been a rostrum “like this ever before”.
The 38-year-old went on to explain how he hopes to battle with the pair again in future races, given that it’d make the racing “much more exciting”.
“It’s a privilege to be up here fighting these two who’ve done incredible in their careers,” said Hamilton in the post-race press conference.
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“And this is quite an iconic top three. I don’t know if there’s been a top three like this ever before. I don’t believe there has.
“But yeah, so hopefully there’ll be more and hopefully, as Fernando said, there’s a lot of respect between us as we were able to race so closely and trust in one another.
“I’m really hoping at some stage we have more of a level playing field in our cars, and then we’ll have a much more exciting race, I think in the future.”