Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1143328
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 17 JULY 2019 20 FORMULA 1 SPORTS ON a day of monumental sporting events, when the British Grand Prix was always going to struggle for atten- tion against the competing attractions of Wimbledon and the Cricket World Cup, Formula 1's leading drivers deliv- ered entertainment every bit as vivid and compelling as that at Lord's or the All England Club. Lewis Hamilton took a record sixth British Grand Prix victory, with a drive that included a brief but nail-biting scrap with Mercedes team-mate Valt- teri Bottas, and then a masterful stra- tegic decision made by Hamilton that won him the race. Behind him, Sebastian Vettel had an- other day to forget, with another mis- take in a racing situation to add to the long list that trails back to last year's German Grand Prix. And his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc and Red Bull's Max Verstap- pen staged a man-to-man duel for nearly half the race that will go down in history as one of the greatest pieces of racing the sport has ever seen. Hamilton didn't need the safety car After the race, a cursory assessment of events might conclude that Hamil- ton won the race because the safety car period caused by Alfa Romeo's Anto- nio Giovinazzi on lap 20 gave him a 'free' pit stop that put him ahead of Bottas. But that would be wrong. In fact, by the time Giovinazzi went off, Hamilton was already in a very strong position. Hamilton started the race like a scalded cat, immediately putting in- tense pressure on Bottas for the lead. They battled hard through the first lap, Bottas defending hard but fair to retain first place. Hamilton backed off a little and then came back hard into lap four. He tried the outside at the Brook- lands left-hander, then cut back early to take the outside for the following 180-degree right at Luffield. Hamilton came out ahead, and looked to have completed a brilliant move for the lead, only for Bottas to come back at him, go for the inside and re-pass into the high-speed Copse corner at the end of the old pit straight. "He was on the inside," Hamilton said, "but when we pulled out of the corner I couldn't really see where he was. He was in my blind spot. He wasn't in my mirror but I couldn't see him next to me either, so I couldn't close the door, just in case he was there and he happens to be there ob- viously. "He drove sensationally well there. So I was, 'OK, I've got to back off, wait un- til he stops and then nail it after that'." What Hamilton did next was going to win him the race, safety car or no safety car. He had already decided before the grand prix started that he was going to try to go for a one-stop, knowing Bottas was doing two. That meant looking after his tyres and extending his first stint as long as possible. Hamilton did this superbly, keeping his tyres in much better con- dition than Bottas could. When Bottas re-emerged from his pit stop on lap 16, he was only slightly faster than Hamilton. That meant that when Hamilton did stop - which would have been more or less at the time the safety car came out anyway - he would have rejoined only a second or two behind his team-mate. With Bottas still needing to stop again, that was effectively game over. "I could have just sat behind him, if I'd wanted to (and waited for him to stop again)," Hamilton said. Bottas would have rejoined from his second pit stop some way behind Hamilton. He would have had fresher tyres, but the fact Hamilton was able to do fastest lap at the end of the race on hard tyres with 32 laps on them, beating a time Bottas had just set on the softs, rather suggests his team- mate would not have caught him. In short, the safety car made it easier for Hamilton, but he was going to win the race anyway. More questions over Vettel Vettel started the British Grand Prix weekend with an interview with BBC Sport in which he was unusually can- did about the number of mistakes he has been making in the past year. So it was ironic that his weekend ended with another - when he mis- judged a passing move on Verstap- pen and rammed into the back of the Dutchman's Red Bull at Vale. That makes it seven races in which Vettel has made an error in the year since he won in dominant fashion at Silverstone in 2018. It's a record that would be worrying for any F1 driver, let alone a four-time world champion. Vettel admitted his error and after- wards was asked to sum up in one word his feelings about his season so far. "Difficult," he said. These are troubling times for one of the great names of the sport. But Hamilton, at least, had some words of encouragement for him. "I absolutely believe he will re- bound," Hamilton said in his post-race news conference, as Federer-Djokovic played on the screens behind him. "You look at the greats playing tennis - he is one of those. He had a difficult race today but he's a four-time world champion and he will come back stronger in the next race." Hamilton makes history but F1's future talents deliver the racing Hamilton won his sixth British GP win, surpassing the previous record he shared with Jim Clark and Alain Prost