His part in the turn one choreography that saw Kimi Räikkönen’s Ferrari and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull collide and retire also played its part in the title battle apparently beginning to distil into Vettel vs Hamilton.
Bottas in fact was another crucial component of the race’s outcome, before ‘old faithful’ – the engine that had taken him to victory and been damaged by the marginal cooling in Russia, and which was now over-mileage too – cried enough and departed in a blaze of glory. This race had some brilliantly vivid moments, not least Vettel passing the other Merc of an out-of-sequence Valtteri Bottas after a double dummy and one wheel on the grass at 200mph. Both had been extensively upgraded – the Merc developments more visually obvious – but that had thankfully not upset their closely matched comparison, and so 2017 continues to be one of the best seasons of recent years. It was the defining moment in a brilliant race between the two class cars of Formula 1 around its most aerodynamically demanding track. New mediums fitted, pitlane limiter engaged, it took an age to get down there – and all the time here was the flat-out silver Merc pulling 200mph down that long straight, greedily devouring the Ferrari’s lead, Hamilton in its cockpit not about to shy away from whatever challenge to Vettel might be required… It wasn’t even certain he’d keep the lead as he left the pits. In that way, much of his former 7sec advantage was being wiped out. And wasn’t that damn VSC rescinded as Vettel was only part-way through his responding in-lap. But then didn’t Mercedes go and pit him next lap. Their hopes were raised as Merc left Hamilton out there at the end of the first VSC lap. That way, they’d stay out too and retain track position over him and have enough of a gap in the final stint to stay out of Hamilton’s reach early in the stint when the Merc’s tyre grip would have been greater. Ideally, they hoped Mercedes would consider that 32 laps on a set of softs was too long and they would therefore leave Hamilton out. With Vettel leading, whatever they did Mercedes could respond and do the opposite. They had to focus instead on how they might still rescue the win, how they might best defend against the ambush opportunity the VSC had given Mercedes. They had to forget the emotion of the VSC having complicated a race they were otherwise perfectly set to win, with the faster car on the day and a handy lead. It reduced by a lap the distance the marginal final stint softs would need to complete and it meant that if Vettel continued to stay out, then Mercedes could bring in Hamilton as the VSC was coming to an end – and thereby buy a chunk of time over Vettel who wouldn’t be able to respond until a lap later, by which time the VSC may have ended.Īt Ferrari, they were in a different invidious position. So that gave Mercedes another VSC lap in which to make a decision – which was good for two reasons. If they brought Vettel in for his mediums, Mercedes would have responded and followed him into the pitlane. The complication in the moment was what Ferrari, as the race leaders, were going to do. It was awkward timing – for to take advantage of the reduced time loss of pitting under a VSC with 32 laps to go meant a longer than ideal final stint on the softs (and they’d have lost too much time doing 32 laps on the much slower mediums). To pit or not pit as the lap 34 Stoffel Vandoorne/Felipe Massa collision has left the McLaren beached in the turn one Barcelona gravel, putting the race under a virtual safety car with Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari leading on softs, around 7sec ahead of Merc’s man Lewis Hamilton on mediums. Mark Hughes reports from the 2017 Spanish Grand Prixĭecision time in the Mercedes pits.
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