Wolff: This is Hamilton racing at his best – brutal and cold-blooded
⮞briton wins first Qatar Grand Prix to cut gap to eight points Verstappen second after suffering grid penalty
⮞leader
What a difference a couple of weeks can make. When Formula One headed from Mexico to Brazil a fortnight ago, Red Bull were well and truly on the rampage. Max Verstappen had just extended his lead over Lewis Hamilton in the drivers’ championship to 19 points with his ninth win of the season, and the Dutchman looked odds-on to claim his maiden title with four races left.
After a near faultless drive in the Qatari desert yesterday, to secure what was a second successive victory, Hamilton had reduced that lead to just eight points, and all the momentum appeared to have swung back to Mercedes.
How have they done it? Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, was clear. “They woke up the lion at Interlagos,” he said last night.
Wolff was referring, of course, to that extraordinary weekend in Brazil when Hamilton was disqualified from qualifying, forced to start from the back of the grid in Saturday’s sprint race, battled back to fifth, only to be dropped to 10th on the grid for Sunday’s grand prix after a change of engine, before coming through to claim a victory despite being run off the road at one point by his title rival. “He is absolutely on it now,” Wolff said. “Brutal. Coldblooded. This is the best Lewis.”
Certainly the seven-time world champion never looked in any trouble yesterday. His task, admittedly, was made easier after Verstappen was handed a five-place grid penalty late on for ignoring yellow flags in Saturday qualifying, meaning he had to battle back from seventh.
But even had the Dutchman started second as he was originally scheduled to do, one suspects Hamilton would have won at a canter.
Verstappen did well to limit the damage, charging through the field to claim second place by lap five. But he never had the pace to take on the Mercedes. Red Bull’s decision to pit in the final laps after a virtual safety car was deployed following Nicholas Latifi’s puncture – so Verstappen could guarantee the bonus point for fastest lap, meaning he lost only six points to Hamilton rather than seven – was an admission of that fact.
“Damage limitation today,” Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, told his driver on his in-lap. “Good points. And fastest lap. Good job, Max.”
It was an upbeat assessment, but Red Bull are on the back foot now, and both teams know it. Horner had earlier been furious at the decision to award Verstappen a five-place grid penalty, accusing a “rogue marshall” of waving a yellow flag that he “was not told to wave”, and which
Verstappen “did not see”. “We need grown-ups making grown-up decisions,” Horner fumed. It was an outburst that earned him a summons to the stewards post-race, and an official warning from the FIA. He did have a point about the FIA’S decision-making, though.
The penalties meted out to Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas for ignoring yellow flags in qualifying (Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jnr, who was also up before the beak, escaped censure) were unforgivably slow in arriving, only an hour or so before the race. The lateness of the notices resulted in huge confusion, with Mercedes and Ferrari mechanics seen arguing on the grid over which of their drivers, Bottas or Sainz, would start fifth.
Only in F1 could they allow the cars to head to the grid without knowing in which position they were lining up. Qatar’s first race was sparsely attended, with fans almost outnumbered by retired footballers.
David Beckham, John Terry, Marcel Desailly, Gianfranco Zola, Cafu, Patrick Kluivert and Andrea Pirlo were among the stars in town ahead of last night’s one-year-to-go celebrations until the 2022 World Cup.
Hamilton made a clean start from pole, while Verstappen shot forward from seventh, passing Bottas – who had a disastrous race, tumbling to 11th on the opening lap, suffering a puncture mid-race and eventually retiring – Sainz and Mclaren’s Lando Norris before the race was even two corners old, and was up to second by lap five.
The gap to Hamilton at that stage was hovering around four seconds and it remained under 10sec through two rounds of pit stops, Mercedes responding immediately both times to Red Bull’s attempted undercut.
Late punctures for Bottas, Latifi and Norris threatened to spice things up, but the two championship contenders made it home safely, while Alpine’s Fernando Alonso secured his first podium finish since Budapest in 2014.
“It was pretty straightforward,” Hamilton said. “It was just about managing the gap. I wasn’t massively under threat. But there’s no time to rest or celebrate. I’m in the best shape physically I’ve been in, and I feel positive going to the next couple of races.”
Wolff was even more bullish looking ahead to what is going to be a fascinating final double-header, making a pointed remark about getting out the “spicy equipment” for Saudi Arabia, which appeared to suggest Hamilton did not use his freshest engine here in Qatar.
But Mercedes’ most potent weapon, Wolff insisted, was the lion-hearted Hamilton himself. “When adversity happens, it takes Lewis to a place where he is able to mobilise superhero powers,” he said. Two races left, eight points in it – this is going down to the wire.