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German Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton Justifies Price Tag As F1 Shows Its Best Face
German Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton Justifies Price Tag As F1 Shows Its Best Face
German Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton Justifies Price Tag As F1 Shows Its Best Face
By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer
From the sectionFormula 1
聽
645
Sharethis page
Hamilton's 66th career win will go down as one of his most satisfying
The German Grand Prix weekend started with the news that Lewis
Hamilton had signed a new Mercedes contract worth up to 拢 40m a
year, and ended with a demonstration of why he justifies that sort of
money.
As team boss Toto Wolff put it after the race: "The difference between
the best and the very good is that on the very difficult days they are
able to make the difference."
'Stay out.... in, in, in, in!! .... no, sorry mate, just go' - Hamilton's
pit confusion
The drama was not even over after the race finished - Hamilton's
abortive pit stop meant he drove across the grass to rejoin the track,
a move that led to a stewards' investigation that ended with merely
a reprimand.
Wolff felt Mercedes were owed the luck - if we are to call it that -
which played a part in the victory after some difficult races, but the
old adage that you make your own luck in sport and life has rarely
looked truer.
"The team did such a great job, the car was fantastic. Honestly, I'm so
grateful. I would never have thought you could do something like that
today, but I just kept pushing, I kept believing and it happened.
It was not so much that he fought through the field from 14th to fifth
in just 14 laps; the speed advantage the top teams have over the rest
of the field has made this relatively commonplace when a Mercedes or
Ferrari driver is in that sort of position.
It was that he did so while still keeping his tyres in good enough shape
that he was not only able to do a 42-lap opening stint on the soft tyre
- his old rival Fernando Alonso in the McLaren managed just 31 - but
was still able bang in competitive lap times throughout.
Ferrari played into his hands with a mix-up over strategy that led
Vettel, on fresher tyres, to be held up behind team-mate Kimi
Raikkonen because of divergent strategies. Vettel grumbled
intermittently about it being "silly" he was losing time, before the
team eventually ordered the Finn to let him by.
But the upshot was that Hamilton's late stop enabled Mercedes to put
him on fresh ultra-soft tyres - the fastest - for a relatively short final
stint. The team gambled that the rain they knew was coming was not
going to be hard or extensive enough to require a change to
wet-weather tyres, that the ultra-softs would give the grip he needed,
and they were absolutely right.
Three laps later, with rain starting to fall, Hamilton had Vettel's
advantage down to 17.1secs. Three laps after that, as others began to
pit in the increasing rain, it was down to 12.1. Two laps after that,
Vettel was in the wall at the Sachs Kurve, swearing into his team
radio.
Hamilton goes off-piste in between the pit lane and track Hockenheim, triggering a
post-race investigation
A moment of madness
The safety car came out, Hamilton's team-mate Valtteri Bottas pitted.
Hamilton was now second behind Raikkonen. And then came
Mercedes' wild pit call.
Should Hamilton stay out on his now 10-lap-old tyres, or change to
fresh ones, as Bottas and Raikkonen would?
"Box, box, box, box," engineer Peter Bonnington said. "Kimi is staying
out," Hamilton replied. "Stay out," Bonnington yelled. "In, in, in, in, in,
in, in."
In the midst of all that, Hamilton made the call himself to stay out,
and it gave him the lead. "Hey, man," he said to Bonnington, who
replied: "Sorry, mate. Just go for it."
"It was the most confusing second and a half," Hamilton said later. "I
thought I was going to stay out. I was happy with my tyres and then
they said come in and then I saw Valtteri coming in and I was like, 'Are
they sure?' And by the time I got in, then they said stay out.
"It was go left, go right and I just trundled over the grass and made
sure I rejoined as safe as i could. I think it was still relatively exciting."
By the time it had all settled down, Hamilton was in the lead from
Bottas behind the safety car. At the re-start, there was a brief scrap,
which Hamilton won the first round of, before Mercedes called it off
from the pits.
"If it had been Valtteri first and Lewis second, we would have made the
same call," Wolff said.
"It was important to score the double podium to recover some of the
points we lost through bad luck."
He was referring to the team's double retirement in Austria and
Hamilton being biffed from behind by Raikkonen on the first lap at
Silverstone, among other incidents.
He insisted it did not mean Hamilton was now the favoured one in the
championship.
Is the pressure to win a home race too much this season? As Hamilton and Vettel take
one another's home race wins
Hamilton said: "It would be hard for me to answer that. I don't know.
The only way that is possible is if they've said: 'Lewis is this far behind.'
Ultimately the pressure was huge on all of us, particularly in the tricky
conditions."
Vettel tried to play it down. He said: "It was a small mistake with a big
impact on the race result.
"It is something I have done wrong and I should have done better but
it wasn't the biggest mistake I have done. It was probably one of the
most costly ones but that's how it goes sometimes."
He was left to rue the consequences of what had looked like being a
comfortable win slipping away through his own error - but then
Hamilton was in the same position at Silverstone two weeks ago, when
a bad start from pole gave Vettel the lead and led to his collision with
Raikkonen.
In the end, Vettel's mistake was more costly. But he has the
consolation that Ferrari are on the crest of a wave of performance at
the moment. "We have a strong car," he said. "So we can be as
confident as 鈥?more than anybody else, it was a very positive
weekend, it was just one of those moments."
Hamilton said: "Every time there is a day like this it is a chance to show
what you can do. Driving from the back is always more fun than
driving from the front but you never know how far you can go.
Sometimes you get the shorter straw. Today I feel like I drove the best
I can remember driving."
"I have had a lot of other races and there have been other great ones.
Silverstone 2008 was pretty great but I went off (on one lap) so it was
99.8%. This one I did not make any mistakes at all, which I'm really
proud of."
That's how good he felt he was on Sunday. And who is anyone else to
argue?
"Love conquers all," said Hamilton over the Mercedes team radio after his victory
Hamilton's victory saw him match Michael Schumacher's record of four wins at the
German 聽
Sharethis page
Hamilton's 66th career win will go down as one of his most satisfying
The German Grand Prix weekend started with the news that Lewis
Hamilton had signed a new Mercedes contract worth up to 拢 40m a
year, and ended with a demonstration of why he justifies that sort of
money.
As team boss Toto Wolff put it after the race: "The difference between
the best and the very good is that on the very difficult days they are
able to make the difference."
'Stay out.... in, in, in, in!! .... no, sorry mate, just go' - Hamilton's
pit confusion
The drama was not even over after the race finished - Hamilton's
abortive pit stop meant he drove across the grass to rejoin the track,
a move that led to a stewards' investigation that ended with merely
a reprimand.
Wolff felt Mercedes were owed the luck - if we are to call it that -
which played a part in the victory after some difficult races, but the
old adage that you make your own luck in sport and life has rarely
looked truer.
"The team did such a great job, the car was fantastic. Honestly, I'm so
grateful. I would never have thought you could do something like that
today, but I just kept pushing, I kept believing and it happened.
It was not so much that he fought through the field from 14th to fifth
in just 14 laps; the speed advantage the top teams have over the rest
of the field has made this relatively commonplace when a Mercedes or
Ferrari driver is in that sort of position.
It was that he did so while still keeping his tyres in good enough shape
that he was not only able to do a 42-lap opening stint on the soft tyre
- his old rival Fernando Alonso in the McLaren managed just 31 - but
was still able bang in competitive lap times throughout.
Ferrari played into his hands with a mix-up over strategy that led
Vettel, on fresher tyres, to be held up behind team-mate Kimi
Raikkonen because of divergent strategies. Vettel grumbled
intermittently about it being "silly" he was losing time, before the
team eventually ordered the Finn to let him by.
But the upshot was that Hamilton's late stop enabled Mercedes to put
him on fresh ultra-soft tyres - the fastest - for a relatively short final
stint. The team gambled that the rain they knew was coming was not
going to be hard or extensive enough to require a change to
wet-weather tyres, that the ultra-softs would give the grip he needed,
and they were absolutely right.
Hamilton emerged 22.9 seconds behind Vettel with 23 laps to go. It
looked relatively comfortable for Vettel but the Mercedes began eating
rapidly into his lead.
Three laps later, with rain starting to fall, Hamilton had Vettel's
advantage down to 17.1secs. Three laps after that, as others began to
pit in the increasing rain, it was down to 12.1. Two laps after that,
Vettel was in the wall at the Sachs Kurve, swearing into his team
radio.
Hamilton goes off-piste in between the pit lane and track Hockenheim, triggering a
post-race investigation
A moment of madness
The safety car came out, Hamilton's team-mate Valtteri Bottas pitted.
Hamilton was now second behind Raikkonen. And then came
Mercedes' wild pit call.
"Box, box, box, box," engineer Peter Bonnington said. "Kimi is staying
out," Hamilton replied. "Stay out," Bonnington yelled. "In, in, in, in, in,
in, in."
In the midst of all that, Hamilton made the call himself to stay out,
and it gave him the lead. "Hey, man," he said to Bonnington, who
replied: "Sorry, mate. Just go for it."
"It was the most confusing second and a half," Hamilton said later. "I
thought I was going to stay out. I was happy with my tyres and then
they said come in and then I saw Valtteri coming in and I was like, 'Are
they sure?' And by the time I got in, then they said stay out.
"It was go left, go right and I just trundled over the grass and made
sure I rejoined as safe as i could. I think it was still relatively exciting."
By the time it had all settled down, Hamilton was in the lead from
Bottas behind the safety car. At the re-start, there was a brief scrap,
which Hamilton won the first round of, before Mercedes called it off
from the pits.
"If it had been Valtteri first and Lewis second, we would have made the
same call," Wolff said.
"It was important to score the double podium to recover some of the
points we lost through bad luck."
He insisted it did not mean Hamilton was now the favoured one in the
championship.
Is the pressure to win a home race too much this season? As Hamilton and Vettel take
one another's home race wins
Hamilton said: "It would be hard for me to answer that. I don't know.
The only way that is possible is if they've said: 'Lewis is this far behind.'
Ultimately the pressure was huge on all of us, particularly in the tricky
conditions."
Vettel tried to play it down. He said: "It was a small mistake with a big
impact on the race result.
"It is something I have done wrong and I should have done better but
it wasn't the biggest mistake I have done. It was probably one of the
most costly ones but that's how it goes sometimes."
He was left to rue the consequences of what had looked like being a
comfortable win slipping away through his own error - but then
Hamilton was in the same position at Silverstone two weeks ago, when
a bad start from pole gave Vettel the lead and led to his collision with
Raikkonen.
In the end, Vettel's mistake was more costly. But he has the
consolation that Ferrari are on the crest of a wave of performance at
the moment. "We have a strong car," he said. "So we can be as
confident as 鈥?more than anybody else, it was a very positive
weekend, it was just one of those moments."
Hamilton said: "Every time there is a day like this it is a chance to show
what you can do. Driving from the back is always more fun than
driving from the front but you never know how far you can go.
Sometimes you get the shorter straw. Today I feel like I drove the best
I can remember driving."
"I have had a lot of other races and there have been other great ones.
Silverstone 2008 was pretty great but I went off (on one lap) so it was
99.8%. This one I did not make any mistakes at all, which I'm really
proud of."
That's how good he felt he was on Sunday. And who is anyone else to
argue?
Hamilton's victory saw him match Michael Schumacher's record of four wins at the
German 聽
By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer
From the sectionFormula 1
聽
645
Sharethis page
Hamilton's 66th career win will go down as one of his most satisfying
The German Grand Prix weekend started with the news that Lewis
Hamilton had signed a new Mercedes contract worth up to 拢 40m a
year, and ended with a demonstration of why he justifies that sort of
money.
As team boss Toto Wolff put it after the race: "The difference between
the best and the very good is that on the very difficult days they are
able to make the difference."
'Stay out.... in, in, in, in!! .... no, sorry mate, just go' - Hamilton's
pit confusion
The drama was not even over after the race finished - Hamilton's
abortive pit stop meant he drove across the grass to rejoin the track,
a move that led to a stewards' investigation that ended with merely
a reprimand.
Wolff felt Mercedes were owed the luck - if we are to call it that -
which played a part in the victory after some difficult races, but the
old adage that you make your own luck in sport and life has rarely
looked truer.
"The team did such a great job, the car was fantastic. Honestly, I'm so
grateful. I would never have thought you could do something like that
today, but I just kept pushing, I kept believing and it happened.
It was not so much that he fought through the field from 14th to fifth
in just 14 laps; the speed advantage the top teams have over the rest
of the field has made this relatively commonplace when a Mercedes or
Ferrari driver is in that sort of position.
It was that he did so while still keeping his tyres in good enough shape
that he was not only able to do a 42-lap opening stint on the soft tyre
- his old rival Fernando Alonso in the McLaren managed just 31 - but
was still able bang in competitive lap times throughout.
Ferrari played into his hands with a mix-up over strategy that led
Vettel, on fresher tyres, to be held up behind team-mate Kimi
Raikkonen because of divergent strategies. Vettel grumbled
intermittently about it being "silly" he was losing time, before the
team eventually ordered the Finn to let him by.
But the upshot was that Hamilton's late stop enabled Mercedes to put
him on fresh ultra-soft tyres - the fastest - for a relatively short final
stint. The team gambled that the rain they knew was coming was not
going to be hard or extensive enough to require a change to
wet-weather tyres, that the ultra-softs would give the grip he needed,
and they were absolutely right.
Three laps later, with rain starting to fall, Hamilton had Vettel's
advantage down to 17.1secs. Three laps after that, as others began to
pit in the increasing rain, it was down to 12.1. Two laps after that,
Vettel was in the wall at the Sachs Kurve, swearing into his team
radio.
Hamilton goes off-piste in between the pit lane and track Hockenheim, triggering a
post-race investigation
A moment of madness
The safety car came out, Hamilton's team-mate Valtteri Bottas pitted.
Hamilton was now second behind Raikkonen. And then came
Mercedes' wild pit call.
Should Hamilton stay out on his now 10-lap-old tyres, or change to
fresh ones, as Bottas and Raikkonen would?
"Box, box, box, box," engineer Peter Bonnington said. "Kimi is staying
out," Hamilton replied. "Stay out," Bonnington yelled. "In, in, in, in, in,
in, in."
In the midst of all that, Hamilton made the call himself to stay out,
and it gave him the lead. "Hey, man," he said to Bonnington, who
replied: "Sorry, mate. Just go for it."
"It was the most confusing second and a half," Hamilton said later. "I
thought I was going to stay out. I was happy with my tyres and then
they said come in and then I saw Valtteri coming in and I was like, 'Are
they sure?' And by the time I got in, then they said stay out.
"It was go left, go right and I just trundled over the grass and made
sure I rejoined as safe as i could. I think it was still relatively exciting."
By the time it had all settled down, Hamilton was in the lead from
Bottas behind the safety car. At the re-start, there was a brief scrap,
which Hamilton won the first round of, before Mercedes called it off
from the pits.
"If it had been Valtteri first and Lewis second, we would have made the
same call," Wolff said.
"It was important to score the double podium to recover some of the
points we lost through bad luck."
He was referring to the team's double retirement in Austria and
Hamilton being biffed from behind by Raikkonen on the first lap at
Silverstone, among other incidents.
He insisted it did not mean Hamilton was now the favoured one in the
championship.
Is the pressure to win a home race too much this season? As Hamilton and Vettel take
one another's home race wins
Hamilton said: "It would be hard for me to answer that. I don't know.
The only way that is possible is if they've said: 'Lewis is this far behind.'
Ultimately the pressure was huge on all of us, particularly in the tricky
conditions."
Vettel tried to play it down. He said: "It was a small mistake with a big
impact on the race result.
"It is something I have done wrong and I should have done better but
it wasn't the biggest mistake I have done. It was probably one of the
most costly ones but that's how it goes sometimes."
He was left to rue the consequences of what had looked like being a
comfortable win slipping away through his own error - but then
Hamilton was in the same position at Silverstone two weeks ago, when
a bad start from pole gave Vettel the lead and led to his collision with
Raikkonen.
In the end, Vettel's mistake was more costly. But he has the
consolation that Ferrari are on the crest of a wave of performance at
the moment. "We have a strong car," he said. "So we can be as
confident as 鈥?more than anybody else, it was a very positive
weekend, it was just one of those moments."
Hamilton said: "Every time there is a day like this it is a chance to show
what you can do. Driving from the back is always more fun than
driving from the front but you never know how far you can go.
Sometimes you get the shorter straw. Today I feel like I drove the best
I can remember driving."
"I have had a lot of other races and there have been other great ones.
Silverstone 2008 was pretty great but I went off (on one lap) so it was
99.8%. This one I did not make any mistakes at all, which I'm really
proud of."
That's how good he felt he was on Sunday. And who is anyone else to
argue?
"Love conquers all," said Hamilton over the Mercedes team radio after his victory
Hamilton's victory saw him match Michael Schumacher's record of four wins at the
German 聽
Sharethis page
Hamilton's 66th career win will go down as one of his most satisfying
The German Grand Prix weekend started with the news that Lewis
Hamilton had signed a new Mercedes contract worth up to 拢 40m a
year, and ended with a demonstration of why he justifies that sort of
money.
As team boss Toto Wolff put it after the race: "The difference between
the best and the very good is that on the very difficult days they are
able to make the difference."
'Stay out.... in, in, in, in!! .... no, sorry mate, just go' - Hamilton's
pit confusion
The drama was not even over after the race finished - Hamilton's
abortive pit stop meant he drove across the grass to rejoin the track,
a move that led to a stewards' investigation that ended with merely
a reprimand.
Wolff felt Mercedes were owed the luck - if we are to call it that -
which played a part in the victory after some difficult races, but the
old adage that you make your own luck in sport and life has rarely
looked truer.
"The team did such a great job, the car was fantastic. Honestly, I'm so
grateful. I would never have thought you could do something like that
today, but I just kept pushing, I kept believing and it happened.
It was not so much that he fought through the field from 14th to fifth
in just 14 laps; the speed advantage the top teams have over the rest
of the field has made this relatively commonplace when a Mercedes or
Ferrari driver is in that sort of position.
It was that he did so while still keeping his tyres in good enough shape
that he was not only able to do a 42-lap opening stint on the soft tyre
- his old rival Fernando Alonso in the McLaren managed just 31 - but
was still able bang in competitive lap times throughout.
Ferrari played into his hands with a mix-up over strategy that led
Vettel, on fresher tyres, to be held up behind team-mate Kimi
Raikkonen because of divergent strategies. Vettel grumbled
intermittently about it being "silly" he was losing time, before the
team eventually ordered the Finn to let him by.
But the upshot was that Hamilton's late stop enabled Mercedes to put
him on fresh ultra-soft tyres - the fastest - for a relatively short final
stint. The team gambled that the rain they knew was coming was not
going to be hard or extensive enough to require a change to
wet-weather tyres, that the ultra-softs would give the grip he needed,
and they were absolutely right.
Hamilton emerged 22.9 seconds behind Vettel with 23 laps to go. It
looked relatively comfortable for Vettel but the Mercedes began eating
rapidly into his lead.
Three laps later, with rain starting to fall, Hamilton had Vettel's
advantage down to 17.1secs. Three laps after that, as others began to
pit in the increasing rain, it was down to 12.1. Two laps after that,
Vettel was in the wall at the Sachs Kurve, swearing into his team
radio.
Hamilton goes off-piste in between the pit lane and track Hockenheim, triggering a
post-race investigation
A moment of madness
The safety car came out, Hamilton's team-mate Valtteri Bottas pitted.
Hamilton was now second behind Raikkonen. And then came
Mercedes' wild pit call.
"Box, box, box, box," engineer Peter Bonnington said. "Kimi is staying
out," Hamilton replied. "Stay out," Bonnington yelled. "In, in, in, in, in,
in, in."
In the midst of all that, Hamilton made the call himself to stay out,
and it gave him the lead. "Hey, man," he said to Bonnington, who
replied: "Sorry, mate. Just go for it."
"It was the most confusing second and a half," Hamilton said later. "I
thought I was going to stay out. I was happy with my tyres and then
they said come in and then I saw Valtteri coming in and I was like, 'Are
they sure?' And by the time I got in, then they said stay out.
"It was go left, go right and I just trundled over the grass and made
sure I rejoined as safe as i could. I think it was still relatively exciting."
By the time it had all settled down, Hamilton was in the lead from
Bottas behind the safety car. At the re-start, there was a brief scrap,
which Hamilton won the first round of, before Mercedes called it off
from the pits.
"If it had been Valtteri first and Lewis second, we would have made the
same call," Wolff said.
"It was important to score the double podium to recover some of the
points we lost through bad luck."
He insisted it did not mean Hamilton was now the favoured one in the
championship.
Is the pressure to win a home race too much this season? As Hamilton and Vettel take
one another's home race wins
Hamilton said: "It would be hard for me to answer that. I don't know.
The only way that is possible is if they've said: 'Lewis is this far behind.'
Ultimately the pressure was huge on all of us, particularly in the tricky
conditions."
Vettel tried to play it down. He said: "It was a small mistake with a big
impact on the race result.
"It is something I have done wrong and I should have done better but
it wasn't the biggest mistake I have done. It was probably one of the
most costly ones but that's how it goes sometimes."
He was left to rue the consequences of what had looked like being a
comfortable win slipping away through his own error - but then
Hamilton was in the same position at Silverstone two weeks ago, when
a bad start from pole gave Vettel the lead and led to his collision with
Raikkonen.
In the end, Vettel's mistake was more costly. But he has the
consolation that Ferrari are on the crest of a wave of performance at
the moment. "We have a strong car," he said. "So we can be as
confident as 鈥?more than anybody else, it was a very positive
weekend, it was just one of those moments."
Hamilton said: "Every time there is a day like this it is a chance to show
what you can do. Driving from the back is always more fun than
driving from the front but you never know how far you can go.
Sometimes you get the shorter straw. Today I feel like I drove the best
I can remember driving."
"I have had a lot of other races and there have been other great ones.
Silverstone 2008 was pretty great but I went off (on one lap) so it was
99.8%. This one I did not make any mistakes at all, which I'm really
proud of."
That's how good he felt he was on Sunday. And who is anyone else to
argue?
Hamilton's victory saw him match Michael Schumacher's record of four wins at the
German 聽