Risk-taker Hamilton rues cautious call by Mercedes
LEWIS HAMILTON lost the world championship lead to Max Verstappen after finishing fifth at the Turkish Grand Prix, with Mercedes in the spotlight for making a mess of their strategy late in the race.
Valtteri Bottas took the chequered flag at a damp Istanbul Park ahead of Verstappen and Sergio Perez, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc fourth.
But Hamilton, who started 11th due to an engine penalty, blamed his Mercedes team for putting him on to new tyres in the closing stages.
The Briton was on course to finish third with the same rubber he started the race on, before Mercedes’ safety-first approach saw him lose two places he could not recover.
Third would have left Hamilton a sole point behind Verstappen. As it stands, he is now six points adrift.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted
It was frustrating because I could see second place and all of a sudden I was fifth
his team botched Hamilton’s strategy but feared leaving him out on worn rubber could drop him dramatically down the order, even out of the race.
But Esteban Ocon proved it was possible to make it to the end without changing tyres, crossing the line in tenth. Could the five lost points cost Hamilton in this ferocious title battle?
‘Time will tell,’ Hamilton said. ‘If I had stayed out, we don’t know if I would have held position, but I’m a risk taker so I wanted to take that risk. It was frustrating because I could see second and all of a sudden I’m back in fifth.
‘It’s hard to give something up when you don’t have the full picture. You have to rely on your team and accept the choices they make and hope they’re the right ones. ‘I’ve just got to try not to drop more points.’ Wolff added: ‘Today was a very close call. We decided one way and it went wrong. In hindsight with all the information we had at the end, third is the best we could have achieved, so it is a fivepoint swing, but it was damage limitation for the weekend.
‘It is going to be very tight until the end of the season. DNFs are going to make a big difference and that was another consideration – not three or four or five-point swings.’
Hamilton qualified fastest but was thrown back ten places because he had incurred a grid penalty for taking on his fourth engine of the campaign.
The world champion hoped it would rain and his wishes were answered with persistent drizzle in the hours before creating a damp track.
Fernando Alonso’s early spin elevated Hamilton one place to tenth, and he got past Sebastian Vettel, Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll, Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly but was frustrated by Sergio Perez despite going wheel-to-wheel with Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate.
The leaders stopped for fresh tyres, promoting Hamilton to third only for Mercedes to order him in on lap 50.