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Hamilton claims controversial victory
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Lewis Hamilton maintained Mercedes’ record winning start to a season on Sunday when he was handed a controversial victory, courtesy of a disputed stewards’ decision to penalize Sebastian Vettel, at the Canadian Grand Prix.
The defending five-time world champion overall leader came home second on the track behind Vettel of Ferrari, but was declared the winner because of a five-second penalty for a racing infringement by the German. Vettel ran off and rejoined across a strip of grass on lap 50, forcing a charging Hamilton off-track toward a wall. The Briton braked to withdraw his challenge to take the lead, prompting a race stewards’ inquiry.
“Where could I go?” protested Vettel. “They’re stealing the race from us.”
“If there wasn’t a wall, I would have gone past him,” said the Briton.
In a bizarre sequence, Vettel at first refused to attend the post-race interviews and stormed away before he returned for the podium ceremonies.
As he did so, however, he walked to the parc ferme and moved the numbers used to mark the finishing order — shifting the number one to the blank space for his car, two for Hamilton’s Mercedes and three for Charles Leclerc.
When the pro-Ferrari crowd booed Hamilton, Vettel told them to stop. “Don’t boo Lewis,“ you should boo these decisions, not him,” he said.
It was Hamilton’s record seventh victory in Canada, and the 78th of his career, and extended Mercedes’ season-opening run to seven successive wins.
Vettel ended up classified second ahead of his Ferrari teammate Leclerc, fourth-placed Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes, Max Verstappen of Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo of Renault.
Nico Hulkenberg finished seventh in the second Renault ahead of Pierre Gasly of Red Bull, Lance Stroll of Racing Point and Daniil Kvyat of Toro Rosso.
Hamilton had problems before the start. A hydraulics leak, discovered in the morning, required two hours of stripping down and the repair of his power unit and then a slow getaway for the formation lap created more alarm.
But as the lights went out, he kept cool to resist Leclerc and retain second behind Vettel who built a lead of 1.6 seconds on the opening lap.
With temperatures of 50 and 29 degrees Celsius for track and air, tire wear was a key factor, which encouraged Hamilton to bide his time. After five laps, the gap was 2.1 seconds with Leclerc adrift by 4.4 seconds. On lap 25, Vettel pitted from the lead for hard tires and re-joined third leaving Hamilton to push on his worn rubber as Vettel clocked fastest lap behind new leader Leclerc.
On lap 30, the Monegasque, yet to stop, led Vettel by 11.4 seconds ahead of Hamilton, but was losing a second each lap. By lap 33, the lead was only five seconds — enough to prompt Ferrari to bring Leclerc in. He rejoined fourth. Vettel led again by 2.3 seconds ahead of Hamilton with Verstappen third, 10-second adrift. On his hard tires, Hamilton looked revitalized as he closed in on the German.
On lap 39, Bottas finally passed Ricciardo for fifth as Hamilton closed with passing range of Vettel who responded with a new fastest lap. The top two were separated by eight-tenths.
A mistake by Vettel after 49 laps, when he twitched under braking at the first chicane, forced him to cut across a strip of grass before rejoining narrowly ahead of Hamilton. The Englishman saw a gap, but was squeezed out toward a wall.
The race stewards announced an investigation into the incident which, on lap 58, resulted in a 5-second penalty for “unsafe re-entry forcing another driver off the track.”
“I had nowhere to go,” said Vettel, angry and upset. “I did not see him.”
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