Hamilton must get over Turkey frustration as F1 heads to the US
The British driver must shake off Turkish GP pit-stop fury quickly in the tense title fight with Max Verstappen. It could help his cause that the next race is in Austin where he has been on the podium the last six times, including four victories.
LEWIS Hamilton will be happy to return to Austin for the United States Grand Prix in a fortnight, by when he and his Mercedes team should have sorted out their pit stop dispute from Sunday’s race in Turkey.
Whether or not the decision to call in Hamilton for a late stop, against his will, will be a deciding factor in the tight title race with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen will probably not be known until the season finale in Abu Dhabi on December 12.
Hamilton has won four times in Austin 2014-2017 and also made the podium at the last two races there in 2018 and 2019, with last year’s event cancelled owing to the coronavirus.
But, bidding for a record eighth world title, Hamilton has lost the championship lead to Verstappen by six points, having started two points ahead of the Dutchman who finished second behind Valtteri Bottas in the other Mercedes.
Hamilton was running in third, which would have seen him fall only one point behind, when the team told him to pit with eight laps left which dropped him to a fifth-place finish.
Mercedes motor sport chief Toto Wolff conceded only that Hamilton should have come in earlier as originally planned and argued they didn’t want to risk a complete tyre failure and zero points.
A frustrated Hamilton insisted: “My gut feeling was to stay out and I feel that’s what I should have done. So I’m frustrated in myself for not following my gut.
“I am a risk-taker so I would have wanted to take that risk.”
The Guardian said that Mercedes “if anything are positively risk-averse.”
But the Daily Mail said the team “acted like Nervous Nellies by calling him into the pits for a pointless stop.”
The drama came two weeks after Mercedes did everything right with a late stop for Hamilton in the Russian rain which helped him win the race.
Wolff insisted: “The whole season spins back and forth. We make mistakes together, we win together ... It is going to be very tight until the end. DNFs are going to make a big difference and that was a consideration today - not three or four or five-point swings.”
Both Verstappen (in Russia) and Hamilton (in Turkey) have now served grid penalties for changing the power unit or parts of it, respectively, ahead of the final six races.
Barring disaster they can now fight it out until the end without similar setbacks, with Mercedes’ biggest advantage seemingly their superior pace on the straights.
“It’s good to be leading the drivers’ championship again,” Verstappen said.
“I do wish I had a bit more pace in the car but we are still in the fight, we’ll keep pushing and we’ll see in the coming races how competitive we will be.”
Defends radio rants Hamilton also defended his furious radio outbursts in Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix.
Hamilton took aim at his Mercedes team with a series of rants after he dropped from third to fifth following a late pit-stop during the rainhit race.
The world champion, who now trails Max Verstappen by six points, vented his disdain at Mercedes’ decision, angrily shouting: “F***, man.
“Why did we give up the place? We shouldn’t have come in. I told you.” He then demanded his race engineer Peter Bonnington left him alone.
But in a social media post on Monday, Hamilton said: “Don’t ever expect me to be all polite and calm on the radio when I’m racing.
“We are all very passionate, and in the heat of the moment that passion can come out, as it does for all the drivers.
“My heart and spirit are out there on the track. It’s the fire in me that has got me this far.
“But any angst is quickly forgotten and we talked it through, and are already looking ahead to the next race.
“We took the risk to stay out, hoping it would dry, and it didn’t. I wanted to risk it and try and go to the end, but it was my call to stay out and it didn’t work.
“In the end we did pit and it was the safest thing to do.” Hamilton occupied third with eight laps to run, masterfully navigating his way from 11th without changing tyres on a damp track.
The seven-time world champion first resisted Mercedes’ decision to bring him in on lap 42 of 58 before he was later overruled.
It appeared a cautious move from the Silver Arrows, given that the five-point swing between finishing third and fifth could prove pivotal in Hamilton’s quest for a recordbreaking eighth title.