A poor start, a visibly inconsistent clutch and a victory gone for Hamilton
After one of the best qualifying sessions of his career, the reigning world champion had a much more complicated Sunday at Monza. It all came down to the start, with a disappointing...
It’s a fatalistic Lewis Hamilton who arrived at the journalists’ microphones in the wake of the podium. For his 181st race equipped with a Mercedes engine, a record in this matter, the focus of discussions obviously revolved around his poor start.
From his pole position, the Englishman fell to sixth place within 638 meters! But his engineers apparently gave him a bad feeling: « Of course, the victory was lost from the start. I knew that my engineers were worried and nervous, which is why I still tried to reassure them. »
That being said, the worst happened nonetheless, overtaken by Rosberg, but also by the two Ferraris, Bottas, and Ricciardo: « *I don’t know what happened. I’ll try to understand that later. I did everything normally. I proceeded exactly as usual. I think I had a lot of wheel spin, a bit like Nico’s start at Hockenheim.* »
Even if Hamilton refrained from giving a precise explanation in the heat of the moment, a capricious clutch would seem to be the cause of his troubles today: « We have a rather inconsistent clutch. In the past, it was easier to properly heat up the clutch’s temperature. Now, it’s less easy to know if the clutch will work well or not. »
After this problem, his race was still salvaged, with overtakes on Bottas, then on Ricciardo, before passing the two Ferraris thanks to his one-stop strategy: « I could see Nico flying away, after that, the chances of winning diminished lap by lap, second by second. I knew then that winning the race wouldn’t be possible, but at least I tried. It’s hard to overtake here. I climbed back to second: that was the best result I could achieve. »
Aerial on Saturday, disillusioned on Sunday: that will be the outcome of Lewis Hamilton’s Transalpine weekend. Fortunately for him, he will arrive in two weeks in Singapore as the leader of the driver standings. A leader certainly looking for revenge, on a circuit that had not been very successful for his Mercedes. As a reminder, the Englishman had retired due to an accelerator problem while Nico Rosberg finished in a rather modest fourth place.
