That he is behind the eight ball again on departing from the Styria mountains will not be a major surprise to Lewis Hamilton, nor is it a new experience for a driver who has been down on points by this race in two of the three previous seasons. But this time his exercise in damage-limitation at the Red Bull Ring, successful to a great extent, has also left him frustrated and unhappy.
His team-mate Valtteri Bottas took the win at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday and with second place going to his championship rival Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton deemed his fourth just not good enough in a title battle he now insists is a three-way fight. He leaves Austria having to watch his back as well as the gap to the lead.
Bottas led from pole to take the win, the second of his career, with a piece of precision driving that proves just how calm and mature he can be under pressure. Just as he did for his first win in Russia, he held off the four-times world champion Vettel to take the flag, dealing with heavy blistering of his rear left tyre at the death that allowed the German to climb all over his back on the final laps.
Bottas had already done all the hard work, however. He had a brilliant start, timed to such perfection that Vettel was still protesting it had been a jump start after the race and long after the stewards had declared it perfectly legal. The Finn had indeed nailed it, and he promptly put a gap on the German he was to maintain throughout the race until the tyre wear left him struggling at the end. He took the flag just 0.6 seconds clear, but as at Sochi he was nerveless.
Hamilton had started from eighth on the grid after taking a five-place penalty for a gearbox change before qualifying. He came through the pack well, but his alternative tyre strategy did not pay off and he was unable to pass the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo in third before running out of laps.
In 2014 he had left the Red Bull Ring trailing Nico Rosberg by 29 points, in 2016 the margin to his former team-mate was 11 points – deficits he would overturn in both years. But the fight this season is of a different magnitude, mainly because it involves a driver from a different team as well as one of his own. He now trails Vettel by 20 points and is only 15 ahead of Bottas. The fight with the German had dominated attention but there is now a very real Finnish threat to consider.
“Valtteri did a fantastic job today and yesterday, so he thoroughly deserved to win,” Hamilton said. “When you look at the results he’s also had a DNF as well, so he’s generally had a better season so far. There was never a point when he wasn’t in the fight; I always assumed he was and that just shows he still is.”
Bottas had a retirement in Barcelona but he has otherwise been impressively solid, with the exception of his spin behind the safety car in China. He may not be able to quite match Hamilton for pace but he is growing in confidence with every outing and has shown that the driver Williams identified as a future world champion has that goal still in mind.
“Since the day I signed with Mercedes, what else can you put as a target? It’s always been the target,” he said. “It’s still early days, more than 50% to go, a massive amount of points to get.I’m developing so much every single race and feel like I’m really getting better all the time. It’s a long year ahead but for sure I am in the championship fight. You need to go race by race, session by session, lap by lap. But I know as a fact with the points, I’m still in the fight.”
Vettel leaves Austria still holding the whip hand, of course, and Hamilton is his main threat. But the British driver knows he has dropped further points to the German and he can ill-afford that. His recovery drive left him downbeat, and in the post-race television interview he was visibly disappointed. Recent events made his reaction understandable, argued the Mercedes executive director, Toto Wolff.
In Baku a loose head rest had cost Hamilton an almost certain win and it was followed by a brake failure in practice in Austria and then the gearbox penalty.
“We have a really good dynamic within the team and when you are so competitive it feels really shit after a day like today,” Wolff said. “But it was damage limitation. In hindsight it was important to take these points home even if for him it feels like a loss today. He would not be as successful as he is if he did not feel the pain as much as he does.”
“In my opinion Lewis had all the bad luck that you can have,” Wolff added. “Now it is time to fight back and hopefully that is going to happen at Silverstone.” With three wins from the last three races at the British Grand Prix, Hamilton has form when it comes to making up points on his return from Austria. He has been down but not out at this stage before, but this is one fightback that will truly test him.
