Spielberg: Lewis Hamilton has insisted he does not need to change anything in his approach despite heading to Silverstone on the back of another average result at the Austrian Grand Prix here.
The Briton will enter his home race 20 points behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel after recovering from a pre-race grid penalty to finish fourth at the Red Bull Ring. His Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas is also breathing down his neck, having sealed the second win of his career following a blistering start. Vettel came home a close second to extend his advantage over Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo took the third step on the podium for Red Bull.
Hamilton, still upset after Vettel escaped any post-race reprimand for deliberately driving into him at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, came here with plenty to ponder. He could still have taken victory on the streets of Baku only to be forced into the pits with a loose headrest before a gearbox penalty here would severely hamper his chances.
Despite setting the early pace, he would drop five places on the grid and a brake-disc failure in Saturday practice added to his issues before he could go only third fastest in qualifying. All in all, it means the 32-year-old heads to Northamptonshire this week under pressure to turn things around but not, in his mind, having to alter anything to do so.
“I don’t think there’s a call for me to do anything else than I’m already doing,” he said. “It’s not like the team aren’t on my side or they’re not working hard or I’m not pushing them hard enough so all I can do is try to inspire them with the drives I had today.
“When I go and look at the race pace, I was actually quickest so I had the strongest race. I don’t think the points reflect this. There’s nothing else I can do, I just have to keep driving the way I have been and hope things get better.”
The Mercedes executive director, Toto Wolff, admitted Hamilton had been hamstrung in the past two races but was hopeful the worst was now behind him. “In my opinion, Lewis had all the bad luck that you can have,” he said. “We let him down with the headrest and the gearbox and now it is time to fight back and hopefully that is going to happen at Silverstone. We have a really good dynamic within the team and when you are so competitive it feels really s ... after a day like today but it was damage limitation.”
Bottas was fully deserving of his second F1 win, putting in a near-perfect qualifying lap on Saturday and then pulling off an amazingly quick start to maintain his lead in the race. It was so fast that the stewards investigated whether he had jumped the start, only to deem the Finn had indeed timed it to perfection. Now Bottas is in the running for the championship he has had his eyes on since joining Mercedes in the winter.
“I was really on it today. Since joining Mercedes it’s always been the target but I don’t want to shout about it too much,” he said. “It’s still early days, more than 50 per cent to go, a massive amount of points to get. I’m getting better all the time. It’s a long year ahead but I’m in the championship fight.”
Vettel came within sixth-tenths of a second of passing the Mercedes at the chequered flag and despite Bottas being cleared of a jump start, the German remained adamant he had seen differently.
“From my point of view he jumped the start,” he said. “I was sure he did, but I don’t want to take anything away from Valtteri. He drove an excellent race.”
Kimi Raikkonen finished fifth in the second Ferrari with the Haas of Romain Grosjean a strong sixth ahead of the Force India duo of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon. Williams recovered from a woeful qualifying to get both cars in the points as Felipe Massa was ninth and Lance Stroll, 10th.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2017
