Lewis Hamilton: "I would have won without the safety car"
F1 News
Lewis Hamilton believes that he would have won the British Grand Prix without the safety car that saw him come into the pits for his stop. Valtteri Bottas had been ahead but pitted on the same medium compound tyres, meaning he had to stop again later in the race to switch compound. Hamilton believes that he would have won despite this.
“I was going to do a one-stop and [Valtteri Bottas] was on a two so it wouldn’t have made any difference. The Safety Car wouldn’t have made a difference," Hamilton said to RaceFans after the British Grand Prix.
“When he pitted on lap 16, I think it was, my plan was to offset as much as I could. And so I think I went four laps or something and I probably could have done another lap or two.
“At the time he was not catching me. He should have been catching me but he was not catching me and I was keeping the gap generally the same. So he was only thinking he came out the pits seven-tenths inside my window – so I would have pitted and he would have been seven-tenths ahead – and then it came to one, then one-and-a-half but it stayed around one-and-a-half to two.
“If I’d done another lap it probably would have got to two-and-a-half maybe and I would have come out on my fresh hards and I could have just sat behind him if I wanted to and then he would have had to pit. So I would have still had that 21-second gap.
“So it didn’t really make a difference. Even I was behind him, I would, of course, try to overtake him, but in hindsight, I didn’t actually need to do that.”
Bottas had looked like the faster Mercedes driver but it was Hamilton who managed to impress in front of his home crowd. There is a good battle between the two Silver Arrows and the Finn will need to start winning if he is going to launch a bid on this year's World Championship.