LEWIS IS WAY OFF PACE
Hamilton limps in well behind team-mate
LEWIS HAMILTON admits he needs to rediscover his speed after falling further behind Sebastian Vettel in the championship race.
As Hamilton struggled to fourth, his new Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas clinched the first victory of his Formula One career to become the third winner in just four races of an unpredictable start to the new season.
Bottas held his nerve in a nailbiting ending at the Sochi Autodrom – Vettel crossed the line just 0.6secs behind the Finn – to move to within 10 points of Hamilton, firmly putting himself in the title hunt.
But as Bottas mastered the race from the outset by leaping from third to first in the ® from JAMES MURRAY in Sochi 220mph drag down to turn two, a perplexed Hamilton could not keep pace with the leading trio.
He had been off colour all weekend and struggled for balance throughout the race. Having also bemoaned an overheating engine in a number of fractious radio messages with his Mercedes team, he limped home a bruising 36 seconds behind Bottas.
Hamilton said: “I can’t explain it right now but we will do some work to fully understand it.
“It is not important to think about the championship because I need to understand where the speed was, where I went wrong with the set-up, and then come back fighting for the next race. There is
still a long way to go. I am still second in the championship, so it is not the end of the world, but I need to recover the pace I had previously because it was a very, very unusual weekend.”
Bottas, plucked from Williams to fill Nico Rosberg’s championship-winning seat in January, must now be considered as a real title threat – not only to Hamilton and his No.1 status at Mercedes but perhaps Vettel for this year’s title too.
He said: “Winning the championship is the only goal in my career so we will keep pushing for that. I am not that emotional but hearing the Finnish national anthem is something quite special.”
It was a day to forget for Fernando Alonso and his red-faced McLaren team.
The double world champion was forced to park his car at the entry to the pit lane on the formation lap following a failure with his Honda engine.
Kimi Raikkonen was third for Ferrari while Brit Jolyon Palmer crashed out after a second-corner tangle with Romain Grosjean.