HAMILTON BLOWS POLE CHANCES
BRITISH GRAND PRIX
WAS it at 2.01pm yesterday that Lewis Hamilton’s extraordinary miscalculation brought an end to his dreams of a second world title and his wider hopes of becoming an all-time great of his sport?
It may yet unfold that this conjurer of the track will drive as brilliantly today in the British Grand Prix as he acted foolishly in qualifying here and restore himself in his title fight with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Nothing can ever be ruled out with Hamilton, but last night the feeling was that a dramatic, defining and damning moment had left its imprint on the 2014 season.
The instant came in the final lap of qualifying, when Hamilton decided to abort his final flying lap for no compelling reason. Rosberg passed him, set the fastest lap and will start from pole. Hamilton, who trails Rosberg by 29 points, will start from sixth.
Why? ‘I don’t know,’ said Hamilton, at his surly worst. ‘I don’t have much of an answer. I just decided not to do the lap.’
With that, he walked off almost as ill-advisedly as he had turned off the track a few minutes earlier.
Where was his respect for ‘the greatest fans in the world’, the British public he had buttered up a few days earlier with what now sounded like empty platitudes?
But back to qualifying, which was beset by changing conditions: drizzle, rain, cloudy but dry, sunny. Hamilton had set the fastest time in his first lap of the final session before rain fell harder and all the cars came in.
Would the rain relent, allowing them to go out again? Niki Lauda, the Mercedes chairman, said: ‘The team wanted them to stay in but the drivers said they wanted to get in another lap, so it was decided they would.’
In that final, supposed shootout, Hamilton made a small mistake, locking up at the Arena — Turn Four — and, believing it to be too wet to beat his previous time, pulled out of the lap and let Rosberg through to capitalise on the markedly drier conditions at the end of the track.
Mercedes put out a statement a few minutes later to explain Hamilton’s side of the story.
‘I made a mistake today and pulled out of the lap when I should have kept going,’ he said.
‘It was a tough qualifying with the changing conditions and we got through most of it really well, until the most important part.
‘It was my decision, a bad call and that decided my qualifying.
‘I’m so sorry to have disappointed the fans here today as their support has been fantastic and I’ll do what I can to have a great race for them tomorrow. You never know what might happen.’
Well, that was like the Gettysburg Address compared to the muddle of excuses put forward by Hamilton at his press conference later. His funniest claim was that: ‘I never give up’. So, what were you doing abandoning the lap, Lewis?
He again accepted that it was his fault yet, contradicting his admission, cited the failure of the team to tell him it was faster in the final part of the lap as some sort of mitigation for his decision.
What makes yesterday’s antics most bizarre is that Hamilton, for all the ups and downs during his career, has always been a racer, a fight-to-the-end warrior. But here at Silverstone — of all places — where conditions are famously different from one end of the track to another, he decided to stop.
He could have qualified second or third or fourth or fifth. In fact, he could have beaten Rosberg. For
although his first sector split was slower than Rosberg’s — 29.5 seconds versus 29.3sec — he was faster in the second sector — 38.7sec against 38.9sec — and, therefore, level at the last recorded time.
There is a pattern emerging: Hamilton has made mistakes in the most recent qualifying sessions, a part of his performance that is traditionally extremely strong. Rosberg, it seems, has rattled him.
Sir Jackie Stewart, watching from the paddock, said: ‘His head seems to have gone a bit.’ One question is whether Hamilton has the intellectual gifts to find the answers against the calculating, clever Rosberg. Another is whether he will resist thinking the team are against him.
Ostensibly declining to wade into psychological warfare, the German did so stealthily, saying: ‘With regards to the championship, it’s good for me that Lewis is down in sixth.’
Hamilton finished the afternoon by again promising the fans more today. It all sounded a little hollow.