Has Lewis thrown the title away?
But could sacrificing three points by letting Bottas past cost him title?
LEWIS HAMILTON cast away three points that may conceivably cost him a fourth world title. He did so of his own volition. And hosannas to that. His self- denial in letting Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas through on the final bend, honouring a pledge he had made earlier in the Hungarian Grand Prix, was recognition that a sportsman is measured by more than the size of his trophy cabinet.
Hamilton suddenly turned himself from the hare into the tortoise, letting a seven-second advantage over Bottas dissolve into nothing. Bottas’s bluegloved hand acknowledged the act of fraternity as he went by to take third place behind the Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.
The upshot was Hamilton, who came fourth, goes into the summer break with a 14-point deficit to Vettel rather than 11 behind as he would have been had he remained in third.
The origins of the situation were sown some 45 laps into the 70-lap race when Hamilton asked his team if he could have a crack at the two frontrunning Ferraris rather than be stuck behind the slower Bottas.
‘I’ve got a lot of pace,’ said Hamilton. ‘Let me use it. I don’t know why the Ferraris are slow. If I can’t catch them, I’ll let Valtteri back past. Or let me at least race Valtteri.’
His wish was no sooner Mercedes’ command to Bottas. He yielded to Hamilton, who duly got right on the tail of Raikkonen. But the Brit made his predicament clear, telling the team: ‘It’s getting very hard to get close.’
His engineer said: ‘Do what you can. You’ve got to overtake and five laps to make it work.’
‘No pressure then,’ replied Hamilton (right). A nice line that deserved Roger Moore’s raised eyebrow.
Still, Hamilton stuck close to Raikkonen, about a second behind Vettel, who had steering problems. But, again, Hamilton could find no way through. The five laps were up. Mercedes extended his free rein to another five laps. Hamilton offered to cede his advantage there and then, but he was told to stay where he was. Bottas had fallen way, way back, and his moral right to be ushered back up to third was losing ground as fast as he was. Yet, Hamilton had not forgotten the pledge he had made earlier. Toto Wolff, the team principal, later admitted he felt awkward, knowing he could not do right for doing wrong. He, too, had a drivers’ title to win, albeit vicariously. What pressure he was under. He went to the pit wall for a discussion. Wolff later revealed his executives issued a ‘gentle suggestion’ to Hamilton to let Bottas back through if at all possible. Ah, but there was a problem in the shape of Max Verstappen, the Red Bull right on Bottas’s tail. Could Hamilton so adroitly pull the strings as to accommodate Bottas without Verstappen nipping past? Yes, by the skin of 0.391sec. ‘It is tough to do that in the championship, but I’m a man of my word,’ said Hamilton. ‘It’s from the heart more than the head. I want to win the championship the right way. And today was the right way to do things. I believe that if you do good things in life, good comes back to you.’ It would have been easy to have used Verstappen’s breath on his back as an excuse to wriggle free of the correct behaviour, as many on the grid would have done, and Hamilton admitted he was ‘nervous about losing the place’.
Ferrari, no doubt, loved the British sportsmanship for the good it did them. They traditionally have a clear No 1 driver, Vettel now, before whom all knees must bow. Indeed, some high up at Mercedes privately wondered whether their own sense of fair play served any useful purpose.
But one found it easier to agree with Wolff, who said: ‘It cost us three points. We are conscious of that. But we stand by our values, the ones that have won us six world titles.’
The Hamilton-Bottas relationship is working well, and the Finn will be hoping he is allowed to stay for another year. He is driving and behaving well, including out- qualifying Hamilton here on Saturday. Wolff promised a decision on Bottas’s future before the season’s last few rounds.
It is hard to imagine Hamilton and Nico Rosberg playing dutiful teammates quite as willingly. ‘Nico and Lewis did not get on,’ underlined Mercedes’ non- executive chairman Niki Lauda. ‘Valtteri and Lewis do get on. It’s perfect.’
Away from Mercedes, both McLaren drivers scored, a first this year. Fernando Alonso came sixth and Stoffel Vandoorne 10th. It was an upturn, but on a circuit that suits them.
Owing to a crack in a fibre optic cable, Mercedes were without radio, TV and data systems for part of the race, requiring back-up information to be conveyed from their factories in Northamptonshire. A good team effort, then, and no contribution finer than Lewis Hamilton’s.