LEW’S PHEW AFTER STEW

Hamilton moans at safety car call

LEWIS HAMILTON breathed a huge sigh of relief after claiming that stewards nearly ruined victory in his 200th Grand Prix.

The Brit held a two-second lead over Sebastian Vettel at the Belgian GP, but was left fuming when the safety car was deployed late in the race after a crash between the two Force India drivers.

The safety car brought the field back together and left the Mercedes ace raging, saying it was only designed to make the race more exciting.

And Hamilton complained over the team radio that “there’s no debris anywhere” and it was a “BS call from the stewards” to deploy the car, which remained on track for three laps.

As all the drivers pitted, Ferrari put the fastest ultra-soft tyres on Vettel, while Mercedes put Hamilton on softs.

From the restart, Hamilton appeared to be in trouble as Vettel lined up to pass the Mercedes.

But Hamilton used all the power advantage of his car to fend him off. And he reeled off two consecutive fastest laps to pull 1.4 seconds clear and give himself a more comfortable margin.

“It felt a bit like NASCAR where they keep pulling out the safety car for no reason,” said Hamilton. “The wing was clear after we slowed down, they could have done a virtual safety car – but they wanted a race, so they called out the safety car.”

Vettel admitted that without the safety car it would have been “difficult to get in range”.

He said: “I was fairly healthy – 15 laps to go, I would probably have finished like that. With the safety car I felt a chance, but it was not a good enough chance.”

The pole-to-flag win was Hamilton’s fifth success in 12 races this season, and 58th of his career, a day after he equalled Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68 pole positions.

With eight races remaining, fourtimes champion Vettel has 220 points and Hamilton 213.