Well the season opener? Where do I begin? There was plenty of surprises in the Australian Grand Prix, Grosjeans P3 in qualifying, the Williams strong pace in the race and off course the apparent dominance of the McLaren. But there was one thing that shocked me most. Being a Hamilton fan, I was strongly disappointed by his apparent lack of pace relative to Button, but was this as bad as it seemed? In this post I intend to delve a little deeper into what appeared to be a Button domination.
After the strong lap from Lewis in qualifying one would of expected a very strong and confident start to the race, with Hamilton's typically aggressive style he would drive off into the distance while Button stayed calm and managed his tyres. In the race however it couldn't have been more different.
As the lights went off at Albert Park nerves got the better of Hamilton. He bogged down off the line and allowed Button to get ahead into the first corner. The race was won here. To add insult to the poor start an on form Button began to pull away quite considerably in the first stint, building his lead to avoid any dangers of the DRS. At around 3 seconds the gap started to stabilise at the end of the first stint. As Button was ahead he pit first, on lap 16. This further added to Hamilton's struggles. Both the McLaren drivers had reached the end of the life in their Pirelli's but Hamilton had to endure an extra lap on them, in doing so he lost a couple of seconds to his team mate and came out behind the one stopping Sauber of Sergio Perez. The Sauber's pace in the race must have surprised McLaren as Hamilton ended up spending several laps staring at the gearbox of Sergio's car. The McLaren was undoubtably faster than the Sauber as this point in the race but he still needed to find a way past. Yet again this helped Button pull away but also allowed the Reb Bull of none other than Sebastian Vettel to gain around 7 seconds on Lewis. During the second stint the McLaren's lap times were very similar but the damage had already been done and Hamilton must have lost all hope of gaining on his team mate.
Stoke of Genius from McLaren?
As the gap between the two Brits was around 10 seconds McLaren made the call to pit both their drivers on the same lap. This appeared to run smoothly and seemed like a master stroke from a confident pit crew but as Hamilton exited the pits his luck turned again. The Lotus of Vitaly Petrov had come to a stand still after the exit of the final corner on the pit straight - out cometh the safety car. This meant both McLaren men had to slow down on their out lap keeping to their lap deltas to avoid penalty but Vettel had pitted just at the right moment, showing luck may still be on the double world champions side. This allowed him to gain a considerable amount of time and Hamilton's second place.
On the restart Button once again eased off into the distance as Hamilton was bottled up behind the Red Bull, the McLaren appeared the have the edge through the corners but the superior traction of the RB8 kept Hamilton at bay, all the way to the finish.
So was this really as bad a performance from Hamilton as his post race demeanour suggested or was this simply a series of unfortunate events? Could Hamilton have won if luck was on his side? Through reading this post I hope you can make up your own mind up but as the say all to often in Formula 1 - You make your own luck!!!!
Ali McCheyne
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