Inside Motorsports Vol.1 - March | Page 28

VETTEL TAKES A REVENGE ON SUNDAY After Saturday’s qualifying, I was sure, that if it’s gonna be a normal race, nobody will have a chance against Hamilton and the Silver Arrows. To have the slightest chance, Raikkonen or Vettel had to either overtake Hamilton at the start (Verstappen was too far away at 4th position to jump into the Lead, T1 is really close to the Starting Grid) or jump him, with an undercut! Hamilton made an Ferrari but Hamilton and the Mercedes reacted quickly, and maintained their position ahead of the Iceman. They both chose the Soft compound, it was clear, that they won’t come out until the end of the race! Vettel found himself at the Lead and while he was consistent, he was too slow for an overcut, it seemed that the race is gone for the Prancing Horse and Hamilton will win awesome start, Kimi had a weak overtake attempt on him in T3 and after that a race that I expected started to unfold: Hamilton was way faster than anyone in the field, he absolutely controlled the race, Kimi was too far away to try an undercut, Vettel got completely lost on the ultrasoft tires, he fell back twice as quick as Kimi. Despite the fact, that 28 Raikkonen was not in the position to do an effective undercut, he went for it with the pretty easily, just as I predicted! …but with Magnussen and Grosjean retiring after problems with the wheel gun in the pits, Vettel jumped both Raikkonen and Hamilton with a well-timed stop for Soft tires! He was able to defend his position against Hamilton and he won the race surprisingly! Results look good, but the reality is that Vettel was super lucky, Ferrari’s pace is now far away from enough against the Silver Arrows…