THIS IS NOT HOW I WANTED TO WIN Lewis says victory ‘hard to swallow’ after Bottas told to let him pass
LEWIS HAMILTON claimed his 70th Grand Prix victory was “hard to swallow” after Mercedes ordered team-mate Valtteri Bottas to let him win.
Bottas claimed pole position on Saturday and was second, just behind Max Verstappen midway through the race, when the team told him to let Hamilton pass so he was free to attack the Red Bull who had yet to pit.
The Finn complained over the radio to his team but, ultimately, he made way for Hamilton to take the chequered flag and increase his title lead over Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to 50 points with five races left.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has been accused of a fix or two in his time and would have admired the gall involved in this one as he looked on from the stands.
But Hamilton said: “When I got the call that said Valtteri is going to let me past, I wanted them to tell him to speed up, as I had Sebastian on my tail and he was getting quite close.
“Passing him did not feel good, and I didn’t know what was planned for the end.
“It’s hard to find the right words, it’s never in my whole life been the way I wanted to win a race.
“There’s not many team-mates who would do something like that. It’s honestly the strangest day I can remember having in the sport in my career. I remember
1 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) . 1h 27m 32.054s 2 Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) .......... +0:02.545 3 Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) ............ +0:07.487 4 Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) .............. +0:16.543 5 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) ........... +0:31.016 6 Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) ............ +1:20.451 7 Charles Leclerc (Sauber) ............. +1:38.390 8 Kevin Magnussen (Haas F1) ............. Lapped 9 Esteban Ocon (Force India) .............. Lapped 10 Sergio Perez (Force India) .............. Lapped we’ve crossed the situation before and I’ve always felt super uncomfortable. I want to win the right way.
“The team took the decision. There are stronger heads in the team who say we have to win, and there are those of us who are racers and emotional about it.
“It’s important to acknowledge Valtteri, who was the absolute gentleman.
“It’s a win on my list of wins that I’m least proud of. Budapest from last year was replaying in my
DRIVER STANDINGS... 1 Lewis Hamilton (GB) ....... 306 2 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) .... 256 3 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) ......... 189 4 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) ....... 186 5 Max Verstappen (Hol) ...... 158 6 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) ..... 134 7 Kevin Magnussen (Den) .... 53 8 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) ...... 53 9 Fernando Alonso (Spa) ..... 50 10 Sergio Perez (Mex) .......... 47 mind. But the team said we need those points. That was their reasoning, as hard as it is to swallow.”
The disappointment was etched on Bottas’s face after he climbed out of the car and on a victory podium that felt subdued.
The Finn, who had hoped to add to his three career GP wins from last season, said: “It was a good result for us as a team – we got maximum points. But everyone saw it, it was a difficult race.” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said: “We are all racers at heart and we want to see a race where the quickest man wins. But then everything is different in the race.
“We got the one-two and it went against Valtteri because it should have been a race win, but we had to change it.”
CONSTRUCTORS 1 Mercedes GP ......... 495 2 Ferrari .................. 442 3 Red Bull ................ 292 4 Renault ................... 91 5 Haas F1 ................... 80 6 McLaren ................. 58 7 Force India ............. 35 8 Toro Rosso ............. 30 9 Sauber-Ferrari ........ 27 10 Williams ................... 7