The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Hamilton apologises for pit-lane blunder
Formula one: Mercedes driver pays penalty as tactics backfire
Lewis Hamilton apologised to his Mercedes team after he admitted being at fault for the pit-lane blunder which cost him a shot at victory in Bahrain.
Chief rival Sebastian Vettel is now the sole leader of a championship which has all the ingredients of a classic after his second win in the opening three rounds.
Vettel’s margin of victory over Hamilton under the floodlights of the Sakhir Circuit was 6.6 seconds.
Hamilton should have been much closer to the Ferrari driver but for a rare moment of gamesmanship.
Knowing he would have to queue behind his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas at the first round of stops, Hamilton crawled into the pit lane, slowing down to 35mph, in a ploy to prevent Daniel Ricciardo getting past.
The stewards decided he drove “unnecessarily slowly and erratically” and slapped him with a five-second timed penalty and latterly two points on his licence.
The punishment left Hamilton with too much work to do. While he rescued second place, Vettel cruised to victory to move seven points clear in the title race.
Hamilton accepted it was his mistake, although he appeared confused as to why he had been penalised. “It was completely my fault,” he said. “You are supposed to have a five-second gap to the safety car and I think I had a foursecond gap so it was just a misjudgment from myself.
“I had very good pace in the second and last stint, and honestly believed that I would be able to catch Sebastian up. But with the five-second penalty, that made it twice as hard than it was already going to be.
“Apologies to the team, but I tried my best to recover it. We still got good points and we still have this great fight as Sebastian did a great job.”
Vettel and indeed his Ferrari team certainly did just that. Firstly when the German, starting third on the grid, blasted out of his blocks and made up the nine-metre difference to Hamilton by the time the title protagonists reached turn one. Vettel was braver on the brakes and passed Hamilton around the outside.
Ferrari blinked first and pitted Vettel, with Bottas, who led the opening phase of the race, slowing up the chasing pack.
The undercut worked to perfection with Vettel taking charge of the race, even though the safety car was deployed moments later after Canadian rookie Lance Stroll crashed into the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz – with 12 of the 57 laps gone.
The result rarely looked in doubt from that point on with Vettel punching the air as fireworks greeted the 44th victory of his career.
After claiming the first pole position of his career, Bottas said the fight for the championship was now a three-way battle, but the Finn will be disappointed after finishing a distant third.