Vettel’s vital victory as Kimi fouls Lewis
How Ferrari won on its worst track and became title favourite
‘The accident was unfair and not funny’
LAUDA
‘It’s silly to think it was deliberate’
VETTEL
SILVERSTONE IS SILVER ARROWS TERRITORY. OR AT LEAST IT WAS UNTIL LAST SUNDAY’S British Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel’s victory came at a track where Ferrari was at its worst in 2016 and ’17, with the team’s pace transformed by a floor upgrade that led home hero Lewis Hamilton to quip after qualifying: “They’ve added at least three tenths to the car.”
The higher-than-usual temperatures also played their part, and it was no coincidence that Hamilton and Mercedes were at their best in the coolest session on Friday morning. But what is unquestionable is that the Mercedes team, while not foolish enough to be so bullish in their public pronouncements, arrived expecting victory and were instead undone by a resurgent Ferrari. Poleman Hamilton’s wheelspin at the start allowed Vettel to take the lead well before the first corner. This also allowed fast-starting Valtteri Bottas, from fourth on the grid, to get up the inside into Abbey to take second, in the process forcing Hamilton to take a wider line than he would have liked. This played a part in Kimi Raikkonen taking a look up the inside into the Turn 3 right-hander, only to lock up and slide into the right-rear corner of Hamilton’s Mercedes and pitch it into a spin. While Raikkonen continued in fourth behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, Hamilton rejoined 18th and ahead only of Force India’s Sergio Perez, who spun at the first corner and fired across to the inside of the track – narrowly avoiding collecting the two Williams drivers that were emerging from the pits. Raikkonen was characteristically matter-of-fact about the incident, and the resulting 10-second penalty that he had to serve at his next pitstop.“i locked the wheel, so I ended up hitting Lewis in the rear corner,”he said.“he spun, my bad, but that’s how it goes sometimes. It was my mistake, so that’s fine. I deserve it and took the 10 seconds and kept fighting.” Both Hamilton and the Mercedes team made some comments immediately after the race intimating that they were unhappy with a Ferrari driver getting away with what was seen as a relatively light penalty. This came just two weeks after Vettel was given a 5s penalty for tipping Bottas into a spin at the start of the French GP. The size of the two penalties certainly seemed inconsistent, with race director Charlie Whiting suggesting the stewards thought Raikkonen’s offence was more serious, and it’s easy to argue they didn’t adequately compensate for the damage done
to the victims. But just as with Vettel at Paul Ricard, this was an honest mistake by Raikkonen – albeit a costly one for Hamilton. You couldn’t blame him for being unhappy. “It’s now two races that Ferraris have taken out one of the Mercedes, and a five-second penalty and a 10-second penalty doesn’t appear to feel… ultimately it spoils the race,”said Hamilton, avoiding saying something he might come to regret but making his feelings clear.“we’ve just got to try hard to position ourselves better so we are not exposed to the red cars.” Hamilton felt he sustained some damage, which the team couldn’t detect and appeared to make no difference to his pace. And he recovered quickly, climbing to sixth in just 10 laps. All 12 positions gained were thanks to overtaking manoeuvres, and while impressively executed it was a little too easy. The Mercedes pace advantage, combined with the fact that his victims would only compromise their own races by delaying the inevitable with strong resistance, made it straightforward. More significant was the gap to the front, for by the time he had climbed to sixth, Hamilton was 27.5s behind leader Vettel and 13s adrift of fifth-placed Daniel Ricciardo. With all eyes on Hamilton’s recovery, Vettel set about consolidating his lead. He had a 1.932s advantage over Bottas at the end of the first lap, a gap the Ferrari pitwall requested he extend to four seconds. Over the subsequent nine laps, and showing no signs of being held back by the neck strain that had cut short his Saturday morning practice session and threatened his participation in qualifying and the race, Vettel overdelivered by 50%. He outpaced Bottas by, on average, 0.462s per lap to build his lead to 6.1s. So far, so good. With both drivers on the soft Pirellis, things started to turn in Bottas’s favour when Vettel’s lap times dropped from the 1m33s bracket into the 1m34s on lap 15 of 52. The gap was down to 4.4s by the time Vettel dived into the pits at the end of lap 20 to stop for mediums. The reason for the time loss was clear, with Vettel reporting“the front-left looks pretty bad”.
Mercedes responded, bringing Bottas in a lap later for mediums. Despite a quicker pitstop, he rejoined 5.2s down thanks to Vettel, who had emerged just in front of Hamilton, gaining time through the undercut. With Vettel aiming for a 32-lap stint to the finish to avoid a second stop, the pitwall requested greater tyre management in the second stint. Bottas used the edge of fresh rubber to close the gap to 4.5s at the end of lap 22. This set things up for a game of cat and mouse between Ferrari and Mercedes, with the leader struggling both with wear and thermal degradation on the front-left tyre and Bottas less troubled. From lap 23 to 32, Bottas edged up on Vettel, closing the gap to 2.069s. Vettel looked increasingly boxed into a corner, until Sauber driver Marcus Ericsson’s crash at Abbey. This was the consequence of the Swede inadvertently turning in with the DRS open in the fast right-hander and spinning when the leaders were coming up to complete their 33rd lap. In the process, he transformed the race. It was inevitable that the safety car, virtual or literal, would be deployed. Not only did this disrupt the battle between the top two, but it also brought the rest of the top six back into play as behind them Verstappen still held third ahead of Raikkonen, with the recovering Hamilton fifth. This was thanks to the unfortunate Ricciardo making a stop at the end of lap 30, after just 12 laps on mediums in his second stint, to cover off the possibility of Raikkonen undercutting his way past when Ricciardo made a second stop. The Red Bull ace was frustrated he wasn’t consulted on this decision, not least because he was closing in on Verstappen and about to get into DRS range (something that perhaps also informed the strategy call), and the timing of the safety car relegated him to the back of the leading sextet. So it came to decision time. Mercedes instructed both Bottas (second, behind Vettel) and Hamilton (fifth, behind Raikkonen) to do the opposite to the car ahead – resulting in both staying out. In the case of Bottas, this was risking a certain second place to gain track position and shoot for victory, while for Hamilton it was the most sensible option as it moved him up to third rather than taking the restart fifth and on fresh rubber with only his team-mate on old tyres ahead. Bottas was warned to expect to come under severe pressure from Vettel after the restart, but he was also told the Ferrari would then start to fade because of the tyres. Bottas aced the restart at the end of lap 37, timing it to perfection and immediately pulling three-quarters of a second on Vettel. That was vital given that the mediums he was on, compared to Vettel’s fresh softs, would take a little longer to warm up. Bottas faced a 15-lap run to the finish, on mediums that already had that distance put on them. But three of those laps were eliminated when Carlos Sainz attempted to go around the outside of Romain Grosjean’s Haas for 11th place into Copse. It was a bold move from the Renault driver, and Grosjean tried to hold the inside line only for the rear to step out when Sainz squeezed him on turn-in and put them on a collision course. Both headed for the wall and the safety car was back.
Bottas aced the restart again for the 11-lap run to the finish, repeating his trick by getting the power down while pulling out of a tyre-temperature weave on the run to Stowe. Initially, Vettel was all over him and on lap 42 attempted to go around the outside at Brooklands. Bottas held on, but it was clear he was in trouble. Vettel kept his powder dry for a few laps, and with the assistance of the DRS he was able to close on the Mercedes down the Wellington Straight five laps later. Vettel hoodwinked Bottas into thinking there would be no move, making a late dive to scythe up the inside and take the lead five-and-a-half laps from home. “It was quite intense,”said Vettel of the battle.“i had the advantage of the tyres, so I was able to follow even though he had the clean air, but it was [more] difficult the closer I got. I sniffed my chance already on the first laps after the restart out of Turn 4 and then on the Wellington Straight down to Turn 6. “The final move, I was able to surprise him. I think he thought I won’t dare [attack] the inside and the braking zone was coming quite fast. But I thought,‘ok, I have to go for it’because I was also struggling. The longer I spent behind him, [the more I was] struggling with my tyres as they got hotter and [I was] losing that advantage. Once I was ahead, I could use the advantage to pull out a gap and control the race from there.” Bottas, visibly struggling more than Hamilton despite having medium tyres only four laps older, was passed by his team-mate on the outside line into Brooklands on the following lap. No team order was given, no team order was necessary – he was struggling. On the next lap, it was Raikkonen’s turn to pull off the same move to claim third place. With Verstappen having retired shortly after the restart thanks to a brake-by-wire problem that led to him spinning at Vale and then getting stuck in gear, moments after Raikkonen had passed the Dutchman at Stowe, Ricciardo was the next in the queue behind Bottas. Fortunately for the Mercedes driver, he was able to hang on to salvage 12 points.
“IT WAS QUITE INTENSE. IT WAS MORE DIFFICULT THE CLOSER I GOT”
“IT WAS LIKE DRIVING ON ICE, WE STARTED TO LOSE A LOT OF GRIP. TRACTION WAS GETTING WEAKER”
Up front, Hamilton was unsurprisingly not able to get close to soft-shod Vettel. The Ferrari driver crossed the line 2.3s clear, with Raikkonen a further 1.4s behind in third. The question is, was Mercedes wrong not to pit Bottas? “After the second safety car initially it was fine, then it started to get really close and I had to push every lap like a qualifying lap,” said Bottas.“it was like driving on ice, we started to lose a lot of grip, especially from the rear end. Traction was getting weaker and that’s why he was always close to me out of the slow-speed corners. I was trying everything to defend, but it was only a matter of time.” The facts of the race say that the team was wrong, but with a significant caveat. Had Bottas pitted, he would have been assured of second but he would have been unlikely to be able to threaten Vettel. By giving him track position, Mercedes rolled the dice – just as the team would have gambled had Vettel not pitted by bringing Bottas in. While the gambit fell a long way short, as even with the second safety car he was six laps away from pulling it off, you can argue this was a justified gamble. Had it paid off, Mercedes would have won a race it wouldn’t otherwise have done. This was not a similar case to the Austrian GP the week before, where not pitting Hamilton from the lead was certain to cost him significant track position. It was high risk, and certainly backfired, but not certain to be doomed to failure. As for Hamilton, the same gamble allowed him to climb to second. But there was less to lose, and Bottas would be justified in feeling disappointed at a second place lost. “It was absolutely the right decision,”said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.“there were 15 laps to the end, we were on quite fresh mediums that would last and gaining track position was the important one for us and triggered our decision. All strategies are valid, doing the opposite [to the Ferraris] was the choice we went for and it brought us a P2 and P4. Considering how the race started, we need to accept the result as an OK outcome, as damage limitation. “We want to be aggressive. It’s about racing fair and square out there, and having the best car is what’s in our hands, trying to improve where we can improve.” The bigger fear for Mercedes is that, after edging ahead of Ferrari with an engine step, then an aerodynamic package, over the preceding two weekends, the red corner produced a performance step that floored it. Wolff suggested it would have been a different story in cooler conditions and this race could still have gone either way, especially had the rapid Hamilton not been booted off on lap one. And had the safety car not interrupted the race, Bottas had every chance of capitalising on Vettel’s tyre troubles to win. But with Ferrari so competitive at what was its weakest track, Vettel might just have claimed not just a British Grand Prix victory, but championship-favourite status.