After achieving the 63rd win of his career in Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton ended his second longest winless streak since the Hybrid-engine era started in 2014. The British driver scored his first win of 2018 in Azerbaijan , with some luck involved.
Lewis Hamilton Ends His Second Longest Victory Drought
The reigning Formula One world champion was definitely not enjoying a good start to the 2018 season. Hamilton won his fourth drivers’ championship in Mexico last year after finishing ninth in the race. That Grand Prix initiated Hamilton’s victory drought, his second longest since 2014.
The Stevenage-born driver could not win in the two remaining races of the 2017 season (Brazil and Abu Dhabi). And has had a slow start to the 2018 season.
Hamilton’s winless streak (six races) was his second longest since Mercedes‘ dominance began in 2014. His longest streak of that nature consisted of eight races. The last three races in 2015 and the first five races in the 2016 campaign.
Start Of The Current Winless Streak
In Brazil, last year, he had to start from the pitlane due to a crash in Q1. Something that normally does not happen to the Englishman, who was relaxed after his championship was clinched, probably. In Abu Dhabi, he could not match Valtteri Bottas on Saturday and could not overtake his teammate during the race.
This year, after qualifying on pole in Australia, everything seemed set for Hamilton to start his year at the top. But the race was decided strategically. The Virtual Safety Car came out after Haas‘ pit problems, giving Ferrari the chance to win the race. The 33-year-old managed to stay in second place behind Sebastian Vettel.
In Bahrain, Hamilton arrived with the feeling that somebody snatched the victory from him in Melbourne. But the worst was yet to come in Sakhir. After a rare Friday, (P5 and P4 in the first two practice sessions), the English driver was fourth in FP3 and received a five-place sanction for an unscheduled gearbox change.
In Qualifying, his pace was not there. He qualified fourth behind the two Ferraris (Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen) and his teammate Bottas. In that race, Hamilton started ninth after serving his penalty and managed to finish third after taking advantage of the two Red Bull Racing drivers withdrawals and Raikkonen’s pit disaster (the Finn was released unsafely and broke a mechanic’s leg).
In Shanghai, where many expected Mercedes’ first victory of the year, the Englishman had a great start after dominating both sessions on Friday. On Saturday, with cold temperatures, his car did not behave in the same way and the champion lost pace. Hamilton was fourth once again behind the Prancing Horses and Bottas.
The race did not start great. He fell behind Max Verstappen and spent most of the first half of the race without attacking Raikkonen for fourth place. After the Safety Car, Mercedes did not call the Briton into the pits for new tires and he simply could not attack or defend. With Verstappen crashing his Red Bull into Vettel and earning a 10-second penalty, Hamilton was promoted to fourth after crossing the finish line in fifth place.
Mercedes Woes
It’s important to say that Mercedes is underperforming in 2018, on the track and the pit wall, where they have suffered in the first three races.
In the inaugural Grand Prix of the year in Melbourne, they gave the victory to Ferrari after a “software” problem on their computers led to a miscalculation of the gap between Hamilton and Vettel. The German took advantage of the Virtual Safety Car and overtook the Mercedes driver after the Ferrari pitted under VSC speed.
In Bahrain, the two Mercedes cars were on one-stop strategies, the opposite of Ferrari, theoretically. But when the checkered flag approached, Vettel’s gap with Bottas increased from 4 seconds to 7. The leader of the race was on the soft tire, whilst Bottas and Hamilton followed in the medium compound. Mercedes’ plan was to wait for the German to stop and change to new tires and then increase the pace to maintain the hypothetical attack from the Ferrari driver.
Ferrari’s engineers told their driver, as expected, that they would not stop again. Bottas managed to close in on Vettel, but could not pass the German. It resulted in another victory for Ferrari, with more doubts about the pit wall of the Silver Arrows.
Shanghai started well. The W09 was quick on Friday and Hamilton dominated. But on Saturday, the maneuverability was not excellent. Mercedes had to settle for a second-row start and a battle awaited on Sunday.
A battle that Mercedes was winning after more than 20 laps. Bottas and the pit crew made an excellent undercut (stopping before the car in front and taking advantage of the newest tires to overtake) on Vettel. But after both Scuderia Toro Rosso cars crashed into each other, Mercedes did not react to the Safety Car, especially with Hamilton.
Strategy Again
The Safety Car came out on lap 31, Bottas led Vettel by a narrow margin. Both drivers had bad luck since race control called the Safety Car and left them with no time to react. But Mercedes did not call Hamilton to come in. A move they should have made, as the result showed, and simply decided not to.
James Vowles, the chief strategist at Mercedes, explained: “The situation across the race at that point was that cars weren’t really overtaking. We didn’t believe, based on the earlier evidence, that there would be enough performance differential for a soft to overtake a medium”.
Well, what Mercedes did not think could have happened was exactly what happened. Daniel Ricciardo won the race with the fresher soft tires. The Safety Car entered the pits on lap 35, with 21 laps remaining, at that time the Australian was sixth. On lap 45, Ricciardo had the lead and finished the race 8.8 seconds ahead of second place.
If it were not for Verstappen’s mistakes, Red Bull would have had a 1-2 finish. Simply because they changed their tires behind the Safety Car.
History Repeats Itself
History seems to be repeating in Hamilton’s fate. The last time the Mercedes driver passed six or more races without a victory was after he achieved his third title in the Circuit of the Americas in 2015. In that season, the number 44 car could not reach the top deck of the podium in the last three races of the year. A streak that continued in 2016. His first victory of that year arrived in Monaco (sixth Grand Prix of the calendar).
Of course, that streak was not a great omen when it happened in 2016. Although Hamilton recovered and took the lead of the championship for the second half of the year, the Englishman could not contain Nico Rosberg‘s charge. In addition, his luck deserted him in Malaysia, where his engine exploded when he led the race close to the end. Finally, Hamilton ended up losing the Drivers’ World Championship , five points behind his teammate’s account.
At that time, the situation was quite different for Hamilton. After the first three races in 2016, he was behind Rosberg by 36 points in the championship. This is not the case in 2018, clearly. The Mercedes champion was only nine points behind the championship leader, Vettel. And the pecking order is as competitive as it can be.
The Land of Fire
Azerbaijan represented a total change of fortunes for Hamilton, compared to the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when he couldn’t cap his great weekend with a victory due to a problem with his headrest.
@LewisHamilton is called into the pits to fix his headrest #AzerbaijanGP @SkySportsF1 #SkyF1 but…… pic.twitter.com/RohMz9hK3P
— Sky F1 Insider (@SkyF1Insider) 25 de junio de 2017
Hamilton did not perform amazingly in Baku in 2018. After more than 30 laps, the reigning champion was destined to a second or third place finish. He made one mistake, after a lock-up into turn one which forced him to pit early and fall back from Vettel, the race leader.
After Red Bull’s mayhem, the Safety Car went out and Hamilton lined up third behind Vettel and Bottas. The Finn was leading the race and showed great pace on clean air. The race resumed with just four laps remaining (because of Romain Grosjean’s crash under SC conditions).
Vettel attacked Bottas into turn one at the restart. But couldn’t make the corner and fell to fourth, giving his position to Hamilton and being overtaken by Raikkonen.
In that same lap, Bottas ran over debris on the main straight and had a puncture in his right rear tire.
Hamilton took the lead and stayed ahead of Raikkonen and won a race for the twelveth season in a row. The British champion has won a race in all of his seasons in F1, which is a record.
Hamilton Leads
His first win of the year gave the four-time champion, the championship lead for the first time of the year. The Mercedes’ driver leads the drivers’ championship with 70 points, four more than Vettel’s tally.
The 2018 F1 championship resumes with the Formula One Gran Premio de España Emirates 2018 between May 11th and May 13th at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
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