THE HOLLOWEST WIN OF HIS LIFE
Team orders seal victory for Hamilton
LEWIS HAMILTON possesses a racer’s heart so he was never going to celebrate the 70th — and hollowest — win of his life. He did not so much spring from his car as skulk out of it.
indeed, he would have desecrated his own sporting standards and remarkable achievements if he had not understood the unsatisfactory nature of a russian Grand Prix result orchestrated by his Mercedes team switching their drivers around halfway through the race.
‘ it doesn’t feel great,’ said Hamilton. ‘i have never finished first and felt the way i do right now.’ the intervention came on lap 23 of 53 when team boss toto Wolff, pressed the ‘tactics’ button, over which the tV cameras had captured his finger hovering, and gave the call that was passed on to Valtteri Bottas by his race engineer, tony ross: ‘You need to let Lewis by into turn 13.’
the Finn complied obligingly. Hamilton was now in the lead (other than for red Bull’s Max Verstappen who had yet to pit). this is how it ended: Hamilton first, Bottas second, Ferrari’s sebastian Vettel third. And so the Briton, with his eighth win of the season, leads Vettel by 50 points with five rounds remaining.
talk in the build-up had centred on how Mercedes would race, given that Hamilton’s error in qualifying had surrendered pole position to Bottas.
it seemed unlikely that Hamilton, on, who started second, would want to be gifted victory. that has never been his style. He has backed himself to win on his own merits. Nor is it the Mercedes way. they have traditionally allowed their men to take each other on.
But, with Hamilton chasing a fifth title, they decided to compromise their principles on the altar of pragmatism.
the decision was naturally controversial, as team orders always are, but i do not criticise Hamilton, Bottas or Wolff for playing it the way they did. the first, and most important, point is that since 2011, rightly or wrongly, team orders have been legal — totally excised from the rule book. so, even if their policy was less than ideal, they were technically blameless.
Philosophically speaking, too, Formula one is the team sport with two i’s in it — the desires of the individuals compromising wider imperatives.
Hamilton made the case for his own defence, saying: ‘i assured Valtteri it wasn’t something i asked for, but it is something the team felt was right for us to do.
‘the team understandably want to win both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles.’ Nor was Bottas culpable. As an employee he had no choice but to abide by the instruction, nor had he an overwhelming moral case to ask for greater consideration, for he started the race 110 points off the championship summit.
He did ask in the closing stages if they could be swapped back, but was told: ‘No. We will talk about it after the race.’
He was miffed afterwards, naturally, and Wolff said it would take ‘more than a hug and a lot of alcohol to put it right’. Hamilton called Bottas a ‘gentleman’ and an ‘incredible team player’.
As for Wolff, he summed up his own predicament well. ‘i would rather be the baddie today than be the idiot who lost the title at the last race in Abu Dhabi,’ he said.
in other words, the extra seven points Hamilton scored by winning rather than finishing second were not worth jeopardising this late in the season in a game as cut-throat as this.
it seems clear Wolff had considered myriad race situations and how he might try to get Hamilton the win if possible.
such an opportunity, though not one he could have predicted exactly, presented itself when Hamilton suffered rear tyre blistering while holding off Vettel. Hence, sacrifice Bottas — partly and ostensibly to eliminate Hamilton’s risk of losing a position to his German pursuer, but also, most likely, to engineer the result that Wolff believed ideal.
Mercedes’ chief strategist James Vowles told Bottas: ‘i had to do this (swap them around) to make sure we secured the win.’ the blistering, incidentally, was real and could be seen on tV.
Not that Hamilton was entirely gifted the victory. After his pit stop was delayed too long, he came out behind Vettel, who had started the race a place behind him in third. ‘Guys, how did that happen?’ asked Hamilton. Wolff said afterwards that he was partly to blame because he was on the radio distracting Vowles. What was Wolff saying? Asking how Hamilton might, somehow, come out in front of Bottas? Quite likely. Whatever the conversation between garage and pit wall, the strategy did not work and Hamilton had to pass Vettel. the Ferrari man held off the attack aggressively off at turn 2, but his rival nipped through on the inside a couple of bends later. then came the Mercedes switch. Vladimir Putin, whose russian Federation sponsored the distortion of sport here in sochi on a gravely more larcenous scale than the farrago we witnessed yesterday, handed over the winner’s prize. Hamilton asked Bottas on to the top step of the podium. Neither of them smiled but they drank the champagne together, however flat it tasted.