With Sergio Perez starting from the pits, it was a prime opportunity for Lewis Hamilton to move closer to the Mexican in the championship. But the Briton found himself in the gravel trap before the end of the first lap. A clash with his teammate George Russell meant Hamilton found his Waterloo early on.
While Russell was on the track trying to limit the damage for Mercedes, Hamilton was already speaking to the media. Speaking to Sky Sports, he said, "Really sorry to my team. It was a chance today to get some points. I didn't really understand what happened. Felt a tap from behind. But I don't think George had anywhere to go. I'm happy to take responsibility. Everyone is working incredibly hard, so it's massively gutting to have a result like this. It's rare this happens for me. I hope George can get back into the points today so I'm supporting him," Hamilton said.
Russell hugely guilty
George Russell obviously could not comment yet, but his on-board radio shows he could be guilty as well. He apologised several times to his team. In the end, Toto Wolff had to come on the radio to tell Russell to just carry on racing. Wolff is missing from Qatar as he recovers from recovery surgery at home in Monaco.
Russell didn't blame his team mate, but apologized. A true gentleman?
He is acknowledging the scenario. Mercedes management is partly to blame for not educating George enough that his teammate behind is on Softs and is **always** faster in race pace even with the same compound.
That's why it was a dumb strategy from Mercedes. If they were going to split strategy they should have given the faster tire to the car in front to avoid this exact scenario
It was odd if you believe that the best driver should get the best strategy, but Toto does not believe this so yeah of course George once again gets the worst strategy. Race after race George gets the poorest of poor poor strategies until it looks like he is not that great of a driver. Even I was wondering it but today proved otherwise. They had no choice but to give george the Lewis treatment and we can see him go from last to 4th place. Lewis once again did what I predicted and went for a takeout. Yes takeout! No reasonable person would have gone into a three-car wide 1st turn taking an inside line trajectory. I can see why they did not keep replaying the scene because it only amplifies just how much room Lewis had to the left of him before he cut across George. Amazing!! But we will here over and over again from his supporters why he should have done it and George should have just backed off for the Amazing Crash and Takeout driver. Toto is ruining this team. They are so lucky again that Sainz did not start the race, The points lost because of Lewis would have made a much bigger difference. Totally knew someone in the top five was going to be the victim on the first 5 coroners but I hesitated to click the submit button last night because of the NOISE from the non F1 fans that idolize Lewis. Real F1 experts are going to weigh in on this and question what Lewis was thinking.
Yeah, puzzling strategy to give the trailing car the faster tire.
It was Lewis' fault. What is wrong with you? Why are some fans so extremely blind? He would tell you to jump of a cliff and you would do it without any second thought. Everyone makes mistakes in life, so does Lewis.
Maybe its Lewis who need some educating after admitting it was a "rookie mistake". At 40 years of age its still never too late.
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