FORMULA ONE LEWIS IN FURY AS BLUNDER COSTS HIM VICTORY
Team’s sloppy maths lets Vettel steal win
MERCEDES spend £ 300million a year trying to ensure that what happened to Lewis Hamilton at the Australian Grand Prix cannot come to pass.
No wonder the world champion, robbed of certain victory by what his team boss Toto Wolff called a ‘ software problem’, was still shaking his head in the post-dusk dark of the paddock. ‘Disbelief,’ was Hamilton’s perfect word for it.
A few hours earlier he had almost rubbed his eyes in amazement as he saw Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari coming out of the pits half a second in front of his supposedly invincible Mercedes.
And there began the inquest into how a team as rich as Croesus and as clever as NASA could have got their sums so agonisingly wrong.
The brief salient facts are these: Hamilton, who finished second, had been in control after a clean getaway from pole and a smooth first half of the race before the random intervention of a virtual safety car (VSC), brought about by Romain Grosjean pulling ng up his Haas at the side of the track.
At this point, midway through the opening race, Vettel took the advantageous moment presented to be reshod. His lead over Hamilton, who had already stopped for his change of rubber, was only 11.3sec. With the VSC deployed, Hamilton had to slow down to the mandatory limited lap time. Vettel, therefore, had the chance to emerge in front.
Now, Hamilton was nonplussed, - little realising he had d been cruising for a bruising, , when he should have been pressing - harder earlier to put himself f in a position that would have e allowed him to remain in front t even in the event of a VSC C interruption.
‘What just happened, guys?’ ?’ asked Hamilton. ‘Why did you u not tell me Vettel was in the pits?’ ‘We thought we were safe,’ came the response. ‘There is obviously something wrong.’
The mistake was this: their battery of computers, fuelled by every figure the boffins have ever crunched, told them that Hamilton would be in front, once Vettel had stopped, if their man’s deficit was no more than 15sec. Not so, clearly. Hamilton later criticised the reliance on machinery over human instinct — modern Formula One’s perennial curse. ‘You are relying on computers, on data and technology, to come out with the right strategy,’ said Hamilton. ‘I wish it was more in my hands because I feel like I drove as well as ever today.
‘I did everything I was supposed to do. From the moment I was told the Ferrari was coming out to the end of the race it was disbelief. I was hungry to try to recover and I was risking it all. I could have lost all the points.’
The safety car withdrew and proper racing resumed with 27 laps remaining. Hamilton was right on Vettel’s tail for a long stretch, but passing around Albert Park is close to impossible.
Despite that, with 12 laps remaining, the Brit said he was ‘going for it’. We held our breath. He pushed too hard, locked up and ran on to the grass. His deficit, now around 1sec, slipped back to nearer 3sec. It was race over.
Yes, Hamilton again got relatively near to his red prey later on but the futility of his endeavour was reinforced when he again over- extended. Vettel’s final victory margin was 5sec, Hamilton having given up the chase by the end. ‘Eventually, I had to make a sensible choice,’ he said. ‘There is a long, long way in the championship and it is not all won in one race. We still got second. It feels like a dark cloud, but it is not.’
Correct. His car is clearly the fastest. Indeed, Vettel acknowledged that his Ferrari is not as close to the Mercedes as it was at this stage last year. He did say his machine has potential, though, and that suggests he might be able to sustain a threat to Mercedes over the 21-race season.
Vettel should send a case of champagne to Haas for their hand in his victory. Grosjean and teammate Kevin Magnussen both left the pits before their tyres had been fitted, the human error of an early release following a cross
threaded wheel nut, and both were forced to retire early. The indiscretions cost the team a combined £10,000. That is not financial ruin. The bigger disappointment is that they were going better than they have ever gone before, with Magnussen lying fourth and Grosjean fifth.
It was a good day for Ferrari with Kimi Raikkonen finishing third, but a frustrating one for Red Bull, whose Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were fourth and sixth.
Mercedes No 2 Valtteri Bottas finished an indifferent eighth after his accident on Saturday caused him to need a new gearbox that condemned him to start 15th on the grid. Hamilton, therefore, had to fight the two Ferraris on his own, even before his team’s maths failed him.