Ein start-finish victory for world champion Lewis Hamilton, yes, almost a ride. A crash that is likely to have an impact far beyond this weekend for Sebastian Vettel – the Grand Prix of Styria on Sunday will leave its mark. In the minds of the drivers, because Mercedes has already achieved the second win in the second race of this season.
This time Hamilton crossed the line ahead of his teammate Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen (Red Bull). And in the team structure of Ferrari, because the responsible persons should now be aware that they not only have to fight with a bad racing car, but also have to get their two drivers under control. Because Vettel was responsible for the other man in red: Charles Leclerc.
After the qualification training on wet tires on Saturday, each team enjoyed the free choice of tires at the start. The top decided almost unanimously for the softest tire compound, only in the rear seats did many opt for the medium rubber compound. Perhaps that was decisive for the bad start of Vettel, who fell back from tenth and was on the long straight towards turn three in the middle of a race car crowd. An Alpha Tauri in front of him, a Williams next to him, a Racing Point on the left behind him, and, on the right behind him, on the inside of the curve, teammate Leclerc.
Moments later there was a crash. “I didn’t have a place to go anywhere else,” Vettel said later. He was only a passenger when Leclerc pissed him off. The rear wing of Vettel’s Ferrari buckled and the underbody of the team mate’s car was damaged. “I don’t know what gap Charles saw there. But it didn’t go well, ”said Vettel, who drove into the garage and had to end the race. For Leclerc too, racing Sunday was over a little later. “That was my mistake,” he said: “I’m very sorry.” Mamma mia!
As if the problems weren’t big enough. Neither the rain on Saturday nor the new aerodynamic package could bring the racing car with the type number SF1000 forward. On the contrary: On Saturday, Vettel, tenth in qualifying, separated 2.788 seconds from the best time that Hamilton had set. 2.378 seconds – in Formula 1 this is a different world. Ultimately, this Grand Prix weekend for Ferrari ended in a debacle.
The seriousness of the situation was also revealed by the fact that team boss Mattia Binotto verbally switched to attack mode on Saturday evening – before the crash of his two pilots – and said: “We have to accept that the stopwatch is not lying.” And further: ” We weren’t competitive today, not even compared to those who had been behind us so far. ”On Sunday afternoon, Binotto only said:“ It hurts. ”
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