REVIEW BY BEN STEVENS
Hamilton-Vettel Gets Down and Dirty
R.I.P. the Hamilton-Vettel lovefest of March-June 2017, gone but not
forgotten. Enter phase two of their rivalry: handbags.
Did Lewis brake test Seb? Did Seb turn in on Lewis? Should they have both
been penalised, and how much? Any way you slice it, there’s controversy for days.
Making things particularly tricky to assess is that while the FIA didn’t find
evidence of Hamilton hitting the brakes in his telemetry, that fails to account for
Hamilton’s well-known strategy of easing-off the throttle at the close of a safety-
car period to back-up the field. Such a manoeuvre inevitably increases the risk of
an incident exactly like Vettel’s – is that enough to brand it dangerous driving?
There’s certainly a case.
Vettel’s culpability is more clear-cut, although he deserves plaudits for his
post-race refusals to admit wrongdoing that bordered on the Trump-esque. The
question for him is whether a penalty that allows him to end up ahead of the driver
he intentionally ran into is harsh enough. The intent was obvious, and you would
have to think disqualification was on the table for the German, mitigated perhaps
only by his lack of damage to Hamilton’s car.
Whichever way you fall on each of these issues, you get the sense that on
another day, with other stewards, it could have played out very differently. The
bar for both the crime and the punishment is far from stable, such is the nature of
F1 rule-enforcing, the argument is sure to continue for some time.
Quick Hits
• You could list a good dozen examples of why this was the most bonkers
race in recent memory, but both Sauber and McLaren in the points has to
be close to the top.
• Lance Stroll may have won the fan vote, but Valtteri Bottas’ drive from a
lap down to second makes him the driver of the day.
• The Force India boys aren’t exactly feeling the love, are they?
• It doesn’t look like Azerbaijan will be challenging Monaco for the title of
“best marshalls” any time soon
• As Jean-Eric Vergne noted on twitter, maybe it’s time Max Verstappen goes
back to the VES abbreviation – either that or make amends with the Indian
tribe whose burial grounds he must’ve desecrated