LADY LUCK SHINES ON MERCEDES
Hamilton, Bottas seal one-two finish as disaster strikes Ferrari
LEWIS Hamilton added another victory to his tally at Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix but neither the five times Formula One world champion nor his Mercedes AMG Petronas team were under any illusions about who should have won.
“It’s a bit subdued because we are all racers and the emotional winner today was (Ferrari’s) Charles (Leclerc),” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff told reporters.
Hamilton agreed: “He deserved the win today. He’s done the job all weekend.”
Leclerc, Ferrari’s 21-year-old Monegasque newcomer, had been heading for his first grand prix win after becoming the Italian team’s youngest driver to start from pole position.
He was leading comfortably when a power unit problem in the closing laps dashed his hopes, leaving him unable to fend off Hamilton and the Briton’s second-placed Finnish teammate
Valtteri Bottas.
A late safety car deployment at least enabled Leclerc, who also earned an extra point for setting the fastest race lap, to hang on for third place and a first career podium.
Leclerc’s problems capped an already difficult day for Ferrari, with Sebastian Vettel having a nightmare of his own.
The German, who led initially but finished fifth, spun while defending second place from Hamilton and then lost his front wing in a spectacular shower of sparks.
Hamilton took the chequered flag ahead of Bottas, who had led the champion home two weeks ago in Formula One’s seasonopener in Australia and now leads the standings by a single point.
The two one-two finishes in two races came against all expectation, however, with Ferrari fastest in pre-season testing and in Bahrain.
Mercedes had been on the back foot all weekend in Bahrain, with Leclerc fastest in two of three practice sessions and four times champion Vettel leading the other. The pair also locked out the front row in qualifying at Sakhir. “We were definitely lucky, but you have to take it as it comes. I still gave it everything in the race and I pushed as hard as I could and, of course, the fight that I had with Vettel was great fun for me,” said Hamilton.
Retired Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg praised Ferrari for letting their drivers race each other in Bahrain.
“It was so cool to see. When did we last see Ferraris go headto-head like that on track? It’s been a while so that was awesome,” Rosberg, a pundit for Britain’s Sky Sports television, said of the battle under the Sakhir floodlights between the Ferrari drivers.