Lewis Hamilton has admitted it 'felt weird' to pass Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc during the latter stages of the race to claim victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.Leclerc all but seemed destined to win a maiden grand prix as he was increasing the gap between him and Hamilton during the race, only for his Ferrari to develop what was initially thought to be an MGU-H problem, only for subsequent investigations to reveal a dropped cylinder.Hamilton took advantage of Leclerc’s problems on the track as he made light work of the gap between the two which was initially nine seconds.When the opportunity to overtake Leclerc eventually arose on lap 48, Hamilton raised his hand on as he went past the 21-year-old, acknowledging the unfortunate nature in how he had taken the lead.With Leclerc's lack of power only pushing him further back, the defending champion coasted home to victory.

And afterwards, Hamilton confessed it was far from his most satisfying victory in F1.

“Ultimately you want to pass someone because you’re quicker than them and it’s been a fight,” Hamilton said per Motorsport.

“I went past Charles on the back straight and I raised my hand to him because there was nothing I could do, I didn’t have any problems.

“It feels weird and honestly you can’t believe your luck in that scenario but what can you do? You can’t deny yourself, you just have to keep doing what you do."

Hamilton described his race as 'up and down' after a disappointing start as he looked to be out of contention to finish in the top two.

The Brit added: “Collectively we’ve done a solid job with the weekend but Ferrari outperformed us from the get-go.

“We’ve got to continue to work to try and keep these guys in our tails.”