Hamilton in the pit of despair as Vettel leaves him trailing
LEWIS hamilton pulled off the minor miracle of landing a speeding fine for going too slowly. the fastest man in the world was done for travelling at 35mph, a tardiness that cost him a shot at winning the Bahrain Grand Prix.
the triple world champion jammed on the anchors going into the pit lane, slashing 11mph off his speed in an instant. He was understandably deemed to have impeded Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and handed a fivesecond penalty.
He went on to lose the race by… 6.6sec.
So when the fireworks lit up the desert sky it was to hail Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who had, in his own words, hunted down the Easter eggs.
While the winner beamed, Hamilton was more dejected than when he lost to Vettel in melbourne. He wore the look of a man who thought he had condemned himself.
Despite the dejection, Hamilton manfully admitted as much. ‘the pit lane thing was my fault so apologies to the team for losing the time there,’ he said.
For all those recriminations, it was a day when Vettel and Ferrari were simply better than Hamilton and mercedes. they were immaculate.
Vettel’s first act was to keep his foot on the gas longer than Hamilton going into the first corner. Vettel took the outside line and was straight up into second place. one-nil. now the German was behind Valtteri Bottas, who had started on pole, but was hampered by a generator giving up on his team on the grid, meaning they could not bleed his tyres.
Exploiting that disability, Vettel was on Bottas’s tail and could afford to pit early, an undercut that helped to shape the race. ‘a perfect storm,’ bemoaned toto Wolff, the mercedes team principal.
now we are getting to Hamilton’s blunder in the pit lane. the safety car came out 13 laps into the 57-lap race after Carlos Sainz and lance Stroll collided, and our British boy peeled off for a change of tyres. now the problem was that Bottas was ahead of him and Hamilton would have to wait, double-parked, while the Finn was attended to.
that entailed losing his place to Ricciardo. Hence Hamilton’s big braking and the ensuing investigation.
this was not close to the end of controversy, mind. For when Hamilton had more pace than Bottas, who was still no threat to Vettel, mercedes told the new boy to let their star man through. they briefly rescinded the order, but imposed it again when Bottas fell six seconds back. ‘Please let lewis through,’ came the words Bottas described as the worst a racing driver can hear.
Hamilton called his team-mate a gentleman for moving aside and his doing so set up at least the illusion of a close finish. that fleeting prospect came about when Hamilton, who had taken his penalty stop and therefore fallen behind Bottas again, powered from 10sec behind to pass him in six stupendous laps. But could Hamilton reel in Vettel? His engineer Peter Bonnington told him so, but it was not to be.
From Ferrari came the laudatory letter from the chairman Sergio marchionne. ‘We are now confident that our victory in melbourne wasn’t just a one-off and that we will be at the forefront of this World Championship. my compliments not just to Seb for his achievements in Bahrain, but also to the whole team.’
While the congratulations continued among the Scuderia, mercedes were wrestling with questions of philosophy. Wolff said they hated having to tell Bottas to make way. It went against their long-established free-to-race credo. ‘We will have to analyse how we approach it from here,’ admitted Wolff.
It was an awful day for mclarenHonda in front of their owners, the Bahraini royals. Stoffel Vandoorne did not start due to the recurrence of an engine problem. Honda are mightily in the soup. Heads may soon be floating in it.
Further encouragement to the hangman came from Fernando alonso, who said: ‘I have never raced with less power in my life.’ He told his team he was beyond caring what strategy they put him on. He retired close to the end, no doubt wishing himself away to his break in america at the Indy 500.