Race falls into Ferrari’s lap as Mclaren show welcome upturn Midfield tightly packed
Italian team played their cards right, but luck was still needed to secure win, writes Luke Slater
At the end of lap 18, Sebastian Vettel was 8.204 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes in first place. He had just moved ahead of Vettel’s Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen after the Finn’s pit-stop.
Mercedes covered the strategy of Raikkonen, anticipating a Ferrari undercut on newer, soft-compound tyres. Hamilton pitted on lap 19 and lost 21 seconds to Vettel, coming out 13.079 behind.
Ferrari kept Vettel out for a longer first stint, which would have given him an advantage later in the race, perhaps aiming for a late attack on Hamilton (or Raikkonen) with fresher tyres. What they could not foresee was the series of events from laps 23 to 26, in what turned out to be the decisive period of the race.
Ferrari would not have predicted the mechanics failing to secure the left front wheel on Romain Grosjean’s Haas, forcing the use of the virtual safety car (VSC) on lap 26. Nor could they have expected a timing error from Mercedes.
The overall aim of the safety car is to “neutralise” the race, so no driver can gain an advantage. But a driver can find one by pitting under VSC. Ferrari saw a chance and took it.
By the end of lap 25 Hamilton had closed the gap to Vettel to 11.306. Had the Ferrari pitted under normal racing, Hamilton could have expected a 10-second lead. But when Vettel emerged from the pits he was ahead of the Briton, having lost only eight seconds to him – a net gain of 13 seconds.
Hamilton might have retained the lead after the German’s pit-stop, had he not been given incorrect information by his team. Mercedes thought that his 11 or 12-second gap was enough to retake the lead. It was not. Hamilton was nonplussed on the team radio. Team chief Toto Wolff later blamed an algorithm error. pace. This year was different, with both cars finishing in the points. Fernando Alonso was fifth and Stoffel Vandoorne ninth, for 12 points in total. It took Mclaren 14 rounds to score that many in 2017.
Using the fastest race lap of both Mclaren drivers as a crude measure of race pace, things have improved with the new Renault engines. Last year Vandoorne’s quickest lap was 1.29.440, some 2.9sec and 3.4 per cent off Raikkonen’s fastest lap. This year Alonso’s best lap was a 1.26.958, just over a second slower than Daniel Ricciardo’s 1.25.945. This represents a 1.2 per cent difference.
Overall, Mclaren looked about a second per lap off the leaders’ pace.
Other than the 12 points and narrowing the gap, the fact that Alonso held Max Verstappen’s Red Bull behind him for nearly 30 laps at the end of the race says a lot, difficult though overtaking is. In past years here that would have been almost unthinkable. Mclaren have closed the gap, but the difference between the teams, especially in the midfield, is tight. Using the fastest lap achieved by a team from sessions in which all cars compete – P1, P2, P3 and Q1 – as a guide to relative performance, the gaps look small.
Mercedes lead the way with the fastest time (for a score of 100 per cent), followed by Ferrari and Red Bull in second and third, 0.3 per cent and 0.8 per cent away respectively. There is little to choose between the midfield teams. Renault scored 100.85 per cent, Mclaren 100.93 and Haas 101.0, though their overall pace in qualifying was better.
It is still early and a greater sample will be more accurate. What this means is that in-season development will be even more decisive in the midfield fight. All the more frustrating for Haas, having thrown away decent points.