ETHERINGTON18 APRIL 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 23CHINESE GP RACE CENTREmission than the narrow margin might suggest.
“Not so much,” he said when asked if it felt like a qualifying lap.
“I had the delta time, I knew the target to do and it was a decent lap.”
Losing that bonus point for fastest lap at the death was the final nail
in the coffin for Ferrari on a difficult weekend. After the promise of
pre-season testing, we’ve now seen enough even with the Bahrain
anomaly to say that Mercedes, which was effectively four days behind
in testing having introduced its ‘real’ 2019 car aero-wise at the second
test, is definitively stronger – for now.
And for Hamilton personally, the weekend was something of a
struggle even though he came out on top. But he worked sensibly
and methodically and could have beaten Bottas to pole but for a
poor final sector on his second, and slower, Q3 lap. His reward
for crossing the line 6.6s clear of Bottas was, for the first time
this season, the championship lead.
“We definitely didn’t expect to have three 1-2s, but now I’m proud
to have been part of the work that everyone has done and to be a part
of these results,” said Hamilton. “[It has been] a little bit of a struggle
this weekend for me, but once I got into qualifying, a little bit of a
shift in driving style enabled me to unlock a bit more potential
with the car. And then the start was obviously great, which was
really the decisive moment I’d say for the race.
“After that it was fairly straightforward. I managed to have quite good
pace today compared to practice two, long-run pace, so I’m really, really
happy with it. You can see it’s still quite close with us all and I think it’s
just down to little small details of overall performance that’s enabling us
to come out with the results we’re pulling.”
Vettel, meanwhile, railed against some reports in the media when he
was asked repeatedly after the race about team orders. He’s right in that
some of the reaction to Ferrari’s willingness to use team orders – quite
justified if the circumstances arise – has been misinterpreted in some
quarters. But much more concerning to him will be that, on top of
the slightly flat-footed approach to the early stages of the race, the
car simply does not have the pace.
“As Mattia said, we tried to do everything as a team,” said Vettel. “Two
weeks ago, Charles was faster. And it was quite straightforward and maybe
a bit easier to pass in Bahrain.
The upsetting thing after this
race is we didn’t manage to
finish third and fourth. I want
to be ahead of Charles, he
wants to be ahead of me.”
Meanwhile, built on the
confidence of the previous five
seasons – and as the world
championship enters its second
1000 races – Mercedes has
emphatically restaked its claim
as the era’s pre-eminent team.
Can Ferrari hit back?NEXT F1 REPORTAZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX
2 MAY ISSUE
Will Valtteri Bottas have an
answer to Lewis Hamilton
at the next race, and will
Ferrari sort out its pace
problems and come back
to challenge Mercedes?“HAMILTON’S REWARD FOR CROSSING THE LINE
6.6s AHEAD OF BOTTAS WAS, FOR THE FIRST
TIME THIS SEASON, THE CHAMPIONSHIP LEAD”Mercedes has
completed the first
three races with a
hat-trick of 1-2s