Hamilton back in the groove as he chases record
Briton extends lead to 17 points with superb win Mercedes ace boosts his hopes of fifth world title
The breadth of Lewis Hamilton’s smile was enough to tell you that man and machine were in perfect harmony once more. Despite the diva-esque quality of his Mercedes, as team principal Toto Wolff once put it, the world champion proved here that he had tamed its more capricious nature, reducing this Spanish Grand Prix to a cruise through the Catalonian countryside.
At the same stage of last year’s triumphant campaign, he trailed championship rival Sebastian Vettel by six points. This time, he leads by 17. In an ominous sign for his nearest challengers, he cantered to this 64th career victory, describing the experience as “rejuvenating”.
While Hamilton is intimidating as a pursuer – just ask Nico Rosberg – he is almost unassailable as a frontrunner. Having surged to pole with a lap three seconds faster than his effort 12 months ago, Hamilton darted out of sight with an immaculate performance, while Vettel dropped from second to fourth due to a botched pit-stop behind the virtual safety car.
There was no repeat of the computer gremlins that cost him a win in Melbourne, or of the five-place grid penalty that scuppered his hopes in Bahrain. Instead there was only an emphatic restoration of the Silver Arrows’ supremacy, as he led team-mate Valtteri Bottas to a Mercedes one-two.
The timing was propitious, with many of Mercedes’ kingmakers in town, including chairman Dieter Zetsche. With the suits in Stuttgart adamant that they do not want to lose Hamilton, who has been coy about his plans beyond this season, there is a renewed impetus to tie him to a three-year contract extension worth an estimated £120 million. “We’re not far away from finishing it,” he said last night. “None of the bosses have any concerns, so far as I’m aware.”
Hamilton could have offered no more stirring reminder here of his enduring talents. For all that his globe-trotting lifestyle would stretch even Phileas Fogg – he followed his previous win in Azerbaijan with a foray to the Met Gala in New York – he has lost none of his focus on what pays the bills.
After eclipsing the opposition by more than 20 seconds, he stayed late in the Mercedes motorhome for his post-race debrief, appraising his engineers of every tiny detail that needed fixing. If this level of perfectionism can be sustained throughout F1’s European summer, his rivals should be worried indeed. After each of his previous wins in Barcelona, in 2014 and 2017, Hamilton went on to seize the title.
He appeared slightly shocked by the ease with which he had swept aside the opposition. “I was surprised that nobody had the pace to keep up with me,” he said. “I’m nearly in the groove. This is the closest I’ve been all year. I found a synergy with the car that I hadn’t felt before.”
Hamilton was not about to dispute, either, the idea that this win could be a watershed. “This is when we are going to start applying some pressure,” he promised.
On a glowering, overcast afternoon at the Circuit de Catalunya, where the anticipated rain never materialised, Hamilton was blissfully unbothered.
About the only distraction was a lengthy safety-car deployment after the opening lap, caused by a heavy collision between Romain Grosjean and Nico Hulkenburg. Having spun, Grosjean decided, for reasons known only to him, to keep his foot on the throttle, slewing straight into the path of the Renault driver. A moment of lonely contemplation on some park steps told its own story. The Frenchman is making too many mistakes for his team, Haas, to tolerate much longer.
At least the Red Bull duo of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were on their best behaviour. Watched closely for any repeat of the recklessness that led them to take each other out in Baku last month, they kept an obliging distance apart. Still, the Dutch prodigy did live up to his ‘Ver-smashen’ moniker, running into the back of Williams’ Lance Stroll and limping through the final 20 laps with a shattered front wing. It was testament to him that he held on for third.
Although Hamilton deserved his driver-ofthe-day accolades, he was run close by his old nemesis, Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard had seemed a picture of relaxation earlier in the day, firing T-shirts from a cannon into an adoring home crowd.
Seldom in this sport has there been a driver so skilled at making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear – think back to Baku, where he weathered extensive damage to his Mclaren to come seventh – and here he was again at his remorseless best, with an eighth place sealing his fifth con- secutive points finish in 2018. Is he the greatest of his generation? The deficiencies of his equipment make a clear answer impossible, but he has a strong case. So, too, does Hamilton, who is building a concerted quest for a fifth world title to draw him level with Juan Manuel Fangio. Did the dominance of this display represent a major shift in momentum, away from Ferrari? Not if you asked Wolff, who conceded he was “b----- worried” about Monaco in a fortnight’s time, when Mercedes are likely to be tested more severely by the high-downforce street circuit. This was a day, though, they deserved to savour. “As a team, we have been perfect,” Bottas said.
Only Ferrari have ever been F1 champions five years in a row. On this evidence, Mercedes look primed to emulate the feat.