Wheel-to-wheel thrills as Lewis holds off Vettel
TWO men’s wheels were separated by fractions of an inch in a high- speed fight to call themselves the best of their time.
Perhaps even Ernest Hemingway would have marvelled at the sporting machismo on show yesterday from Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel at the Circuit de Catalunya.
The great American author asserted that there were only three sports — bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering. The rest are merely games. Political correctness has put paid to bullfighting in Barcelona, and even if Formula One is less dangerous than it once was, this Spanish Grand Prix offered a spectacle of drama and daring not seen on this scale for some time.
Formula One boring? Not when it is conducted like this right at the front of the field, when each of the two participants refused to yield to anything but precise calculation of space and possibility.
Thirty- seven laps in, Vettel emerged from the second of his two pit stops, barely ahead of Hamilton, who had changed his tyres just a lap earlier. They came to Turn One cheek-by-jowl, Vettel holding off Hamilton’s Mercedes, which was forced to run wide.
‘ That was dangerous,’ said Hamilton over the radio. The stewards viewed the evidence but wafted away any thought of penalising Vettel. We had waited all season to see men with seven world titles between them come together in close combat, and neither overstepped the mark, their tyres not quite touching.
‘I gave you space,’ said Hamilton as they sat together at the post-race press conference. Vettel chimed in: ‘I gave you space, too.’
Hamilton responded: ‘Not really. It was close. But it was cool.’ They were laughing as they spoke. Hamilton ended up making the decisive, winning pass a few laps later. On faster soft tyres and using the DRS booster, he zoomed past Vettel.
‘No chance,’ said the German of the notion of withstanding the 220mph overtaking move.
While there was disappointment at Ferrari, there was mutual respect between teams and drivers. They had been locked in something special.
‘It was the rawest fight I can remember for a long while,’ said Hamilton. ‘I loved it. It is what got me into racing in the first place. Having a fight against a four-time champion is awesome.’
The race might have been more straightforward had Hamilton made a clean getaway from pole position. Instead, he suffered wheel- spin and Vettel nipped out ahead.
Vettel was soon going strong up front, Hamilton keeping him honest but not proving an immensely large object in the Ferrari’s rearview mirror.
Vettel was the first to stop, a slight problem with his front right tyre delaying him only fractionally. ‘ This is the opportunity Lewis — give it everything you’ve got,’ came the team instruction.
When Hamilton’s turn to pit arrived he was leading by 14sec. He came out, reshod, seven seconds back. There was one other relevant factor at this point — the other Mercedes, that of Valtteri Bottas, in Vettel’s way.
But the German pulled a great overtake on the Finn, who had delayed him a few seconds already. Vettel dummied Bottas, emerging ahead at the first corner via a plume of soil as his tyre clipped the grass. That was the move of the day.
At the next round of stops, Mercedes got their strategy dead right. When a virtual safety car was deployed as Stoffel Vandoorne’s McLaren was being lifted off the track after he had collided with Felipe Massa’s Williams, they got Hamilton in and out during the latter part of the neutralised race so he was right on Vettel after he pitted the next lap.
Then the fireworks started. So total was Hamilton’s commitment that he was breathing noticeably heavily over the radio.
With the 55th win of his career complete, the Briton has cut Vettel’s championship lead to six points. It was Hamilton’s second win of the season. Monaco brings the next instalment.
Nobody else is near them at the moment. For example, Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who finished third, was more than a minute behind. And he was only that high up because Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen pranged out on lap one and Bottas’s engine blew, the rarest of phenomena at the serial world championship team.
But all the Mercedes smiles were broad, and hugs exchanged, as Hamilton was chased by team-mates spraying champagne over him after the traditional post-race victors’ picture in the pit lane.
‘I have been racing for 25 years and this feels like my first win,’ said Hamilton, a three-time world champion enjoying his afternoon of real sport.