Hamilton backs Mercedes after controversy
Bottas forced to give way following team orders Wolff: I’ll be ‘baddie’ now rather than ‘idiot’ later
Lewis Hamilton last night stood by Mercedes’ decision to manufacture his controversial win in Russia that took him ever closer to a fifth world championship.
Hamilton will head into the final five rounds of the season with a 50-point lead over Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel after team-mate Valtteri Bottas was ordered out of his way at the Sochi Autodrom.
Bottas was in complete control of yesterday’s race only for Mercedes to instruct him to step aside with 30 laps remaining. Mercedes have avoided using team orders in their recent history, but with Vettel still in striking range of Hamilton, they changed tack here, denying Bottas his first win of 2018 and handing their star driver seven extra, and potentially, critical points.
Hamilton was a reluctant winner, and chose not to celebrate. He immediately sought to console Bottas. This type of victory is not Hamilton’s style. Instead, he invited Bottas to join him on the top step of the podium, and even appeared to suggest to the deflated Finn that he should lift the winner’s trophy in front of the watching Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Bottas stared vacantly as the national anthems were played, and the mood had eased little by the time both Mercedes drivers appeared for the press conference.
“It doesn’t feel great,” Hamilton said. “I definitely don’t think I have finished first in my career and feel the way that I do right now.
“Only time will tell if it was necessary, but if we were to lose the championship by one point, would you look back at this race and think we should have worked as a team?
“We are a team, and the team want to win the drivers’ and constructors’ championships, so that is why the bosses took the decision.”
Toto Wolff, team principal for the Silver Arrows, admitted it was an agonising decision, and one which led to him enduring a restless night on Saturday after Bottas beat Hamilton to pole.
“At the end, if five points or three points are missing then you are the biggest idiot on the planet by prioritising Valtteri’s race over the championship,” Wolff said.
“Somebody needs to be the baddie and it’s me today. You need to weigh it up. To be the baddie on Sunday evening, for many right reasons, or be the idiot in Abu Dhabi at the end of the season. I’d rather be the baddie today.”
Bottas was leading after he held off Hamilton and Vettel on the opening-lap drag race to turn two. Hamilton was slow out of his starting blocks, but kept Vettel at bay only to fall behind the German when he stopped for tyres.
The strategy error provoked a furious reaction from Wolff, who smashed his first on a table as he watched on from the Mercedes’ garage. Hamilton took less than two laps to pass Vettel, but flat-spotted his right-rear tyre in the process.
Mercedes feared that the damage would leave him exposed, so on lap 23, Bottas’s race engineer, Tony Ross, delivered the bad news.
Bottas slowed down, moved to the right, and Hamilton took the position before cruising to a victory that leaves him on the brink of his fourth championship in five years with only 125 points to play for.
Bottas had pleaded to switch places back with Hamilton, but his request was denied.
“Lewis is fighting for the championship and I am not so from the team’s point of view it was the ideal result, but maybe not ideal for me,” Bottas said.