LEW MUST BE JOKING!
F1: BELGIAN GRAND PRIX Winner Hamilton’s rap for stewards
......... 220 1 S Vettel (Ger, Ferrari) 2 L Hamilton (Gbr, Mercedes).213 ..... 179 3 V Bottas (Fin, Mercedes) Bull) .132 4 D Ricciardo (Aus, Red ...128 5 K Raikkonen (Fin, Ferrari) Bull). 67 6 M Verstappen (Hol, Red India) ... 56 7 S Perez (Mex, Force ..... 47 8 E Ocon (Fra, Force India) Rosso) . 36 9 C Sainz Jr (Spa, Toro Renault) . 34 10 N Hulkenberg (Ger, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Mercedes ................... 392 Ferrari ........................ 348 Red Bull ..................... 199 Force India ................. 103 Williams ....................... 45 Toro Rosso .................. 40 Haas F1 ........................ 35 Renault ........................ 34 McLaren ....................... 11 Sauber ........................... 5 ®
LEWIS HAMILTON launched a scathing attack on the race stewards despite winning his 200th Grand Prix at Spa yesterday.
The Mercedes ace cut the championship gap to seven points after desperately holding off Ferrari’s championship leader Sebastian Vettel over the closing stages to claim the Belgian Grand Prix.
Hamilton was cruising to victory with a healthy two-second advantage when Force India drivers Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon smashed into each other with 16 laps to go.
Stewards immediately called out the safety car, fearing debris on the track, and it ran for three laps while Hamilton and Vettel pitted for fresh tyres.
And while Hamilton was fastest away at the rolling restart, Vettel harried him all the way to the line as the Brit won by 0.23sec.
Hamilton complained on the team radio: “There’s no debris anywhere – it was a BS call from the stewards”.
And he then compared the race with American oval track sports car racing, where organisers have been accused of throwing in safety car delays to tighten up the racing.
“I felt it was a bit like NASCAR, where they keep pulling out the safety cars for no reason,” said Hamilton, whose teammate Valterri Bottas was a poor fifth behind Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo in third and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in fourth.
Annoyed
“The wing was cleared. After we’d slowed down they could have done a virtual safety car but I guess they wanted to see a race, so that’s for sure the reason they did that because there was hardly any debris.”
Ocon was even more annoyed, tweeting: “Damage limitation today, we were having a good race until Perez tried to kill me 2 times! Anyway he didn’t manage to do so ending up P9 !”
Vettel admitted that without the safety car slowing down the action it would have been “difficult to get in range”.
The German added: “I was waiting for him to maybe have an error, he was probably waiting for me to have an error or an off, but it didn’t happen so the quality was very high.
“With the safety car I felt a chance but it wasn’t good enough chance.”
Despite the win, Hamilton was worried his Mercedes was not more dominant on a long, fast track that should have suited it perfectly. He said: “Ferrari were ultimately the quicker car today. I was just able to keep them at bay.
“If the cars were reversed I don’t think I would have been able to hold on to Vettel like he did with me.
“If anyone out there thinks we have the best car this year they need to think again.
“They do have the upper hand and their car is stronger. We maybe have the upper hand power wise but we really need to keep on improving the car.”