Sebastian Vettel believes his attempt to take the lead late in the Belgian Grand Prix was compromised by getting ‘too good’ of a run at the restart.
Vettel chased Hamilton hard throughout the race, managing to get into the Mercedes’s slipstream along the Kemmel Straight on both the opening lap and the restart.
Hamilton was able to successfully defend the attacks however and Vettel says he believes his proximity to Hamilton at the restart may have been more of a hindrance than a help.
“It was a tricky one,” says Vettel. “I knew I had an advantage with the softer compound. If I had to do it again, maybe I would do it a little differently. I had too good of a restart, probably, and too good of a first corner.
“I tried to open a gap, but we are a bit down on straight line speed so it’s playing with fire. If you open too much [of a gap], then it’s just silly because you can’t get back and then it’s like ‘why the hell did you lift?’. If you’re too close, then something like what happened can happen. At the top of the hill, I had to already get out of the tow. Then it was a drag race and even though I had momentum on him, then still a long way and there we’re missing a bit. So nowhere to go after that.”
Vettel says he was frustrated to have missed his opportunity to snatch the lead of the race away from his championship rival.
“I was super annoyed and angry in that moment,” he says. “I was trying to stay there but it was really difficult in that moment. I was surprised how well we could stick with [Mercedes] the whole race.
“Overall it was a fun race. I would’ve loved to maybe use that half a chance but I certainly learned something for the future.”
After Lewis Hamilton closed his lead in the drivers’ championship to seven points, Vettel says the key for Ferrari over the end of the season will be to maximise their qualifying performance.
“We are pushing flat out. Yesterday, if you look at the comparison to Mercedes, obviously I had a bit of a tow, but before that we were losing about three or four tenths in the straights. So that’s maybe what we’re missing.
“But it’s not a big secret that they’re very, very strong in qualifying and they’re still very strong. Plus Lewis is doing a good job so you can’t take it away from them. We simply have to get better, nail the laps, find more performance no matter where to qualify in front. As we saw today, if we had got out in front, I think we had the pace to stay there. In the end, we weren’t. So we have to live with second.”
2017 Belgian Grand Prix
- 2017 Belgian Grand Prix team radio transcript
- 2017 Belgian Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
- 2017 Belgian Grand Prix Star Performers
- “That’s a BS call”: 2017 Belgian GP team radio highlights
- Hamilton equals Schumacher’s pole record with 41 races to spare
Patrickl (@patrickl)
27th August 2017, 20:01
He might have lost 3 or 4 tenths on the straight, but he obviously gained more on the twisty section. So maybe he should blame his setup choices then.
Hamilton had to nail Q3 and the start(s). Which he did. After that it was odd that he could so easily hold a faster car behind. Probably because Ferrari went for too much downforce and perhaps incorrect low gearing.
Still, Ferrari made quite a step forward to be so competitive on a high speed track. Although they might have done as well at Silverstone too if hadn’t messed that one up so royally.
FlatSix (@)
27th August 2017, 20:15
@patrickl I’m fairly sure the Ferrari was not the faster car today. If it had been first through T1 I’m also quite certain Hamilton would’ve been able to get past in the same scenario thanks to the extra few ponies.
The way I see it is that Hamilton continues to build on his own strength on saturdays thanks to a very quick Mercedes over one lap, something Bottas fails to extract. Starting in front, and going first through T1 is 80% of the job. I was more impressed with Vettel his P2 than Hamilton his P1 really,…
Either way, nice win for Hamilton, expecting him to win Monza too, and then we have others like Malaysia, Mexico, Abu Dhabi, Austin, and Brazil which will suit the Mercedes too. I’ll be at Monza too so honestly I just hope a Ferrari wins for the experience. Think Vettel will win at Singapore and Suzuka but that won’t be enough.
Kribana (@krichelle)
27th August 2017, 21:22
Suzuka has lots of change of direction. That was where Lewis was doing the damage in Silverstone and SPA throughout qualifying. To be honest, there is a video that shows that Seb gained 0.358 in the last sector on Qualifying only because of the tow. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4fwhgQz5GCA
FlatSix (@)
28th August 2017, 10:24
@krichelle I’m sorry but that video proves exactly nothing. It surely helped but I think it’s quite naive to believe it resulted in a 0,358s difference. If that was the case this would be reoccurring much more often, especially at tracks like Spa or Monza.
Fact Hamilton has only won from pole this season, and very likely would’ve in Melbourne and Baku too (from pole) really does show well what I’m saying,…
Martin
27th August 2017, 23:18
Im fairly sure it was .. or at least an equal to Merc. Ferrari hampered themselves by shoving extra downforce on over Merc (as was evident all weekend).
FlatSix (@)
28th August 2017, 10:25
There is no point in comparing two cars *if one has a different setup than it actually had*… That’s like saying I’m fairly sure the Sauber was the fastest car if it had a V12.
Martin
28th August 2017, 16:01
I’m not saying it was equal to Merc had they done a different setup I am saying they were equal to Merc to full stop. My point is only that had they not put so much downforce on the car compared to Merc they could have won the race (by not topping out on the straights)
Patrickl (@patrickl)
28th August 2017, 18:37
@flatsix, It’s not even Ferrari. Only Vettel had way too much downforce on his car. I guess he likes it that way. Raikkonen was much faster on the straight than Vettel. Same engine.
Baron
29th August 2017, 16:53
@patrickl
And he was nowhere in the race and couldn’t even attack Ricciardo at the end. If Vettel had opted for Raikkonen’s setup Mercedes would have had a 1-2.
johnm
28th August 2017, 7:24
You were more impressed with Vettel’s P2 that was the result of a tow, more than Hamilton’s near-perfect P1 lap? Odd.
FlatSix (@)
28th August 2017, 10:27
Yes, that single tow for not even a 100 metres resulted in that lap. Bottas should’ve been P2 with that car, it’s that simple. The Mercedes had enough of an advantage in Q for him to be expected on P2.
Kribana (@krichelle)
28th August 2017, 13:16
Remember Vettel last year in Abu Dhabi complaining of Lewis giving a tow to Nico? And Nico was within 2 seconds. It is within 2 seconds that he got the tow. Here is another video:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4fwhgQz5GCA
You can see that near Blanchimont, Kimi was ahead of Seb and you can see Seb constantly gaining on Lewis as soon as Kimi was within sight, just right after the second right corner of Stavelot. Without Kimi, that sector would have been all emerald color.
Martin
28th August 2017, 16:01
Ferrari said themselves the tow was significant.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
28th August 2017, 18:38
@flatsix, I’m pretty sure Raikkonen would have had Vettel in Q3 if they had given Raikkonen tyres that worked.
FlatSix (@)
28th August 2017, 18:43
@patrickl I’m not so much into the ‘tyres that worked’ part but I also do think Kimi had the chance of being on the front row. However, he ruined his own lap as he said so himself. That in all only makes Vettel his performance better, at best he was looking at P4 so the pressure was onto him to perform better, which he once more did.
Baron
29th August 2017, 16:54
@patrickl
Or the talent that Vettel has.
Tim (@TimAitch) (@timaitch)
27th August 2017, 22:10
Nice to see Hamilton improving his brain, and demonstrating some highly effective defensive cunning.
Kgn11
28th August 2017, 10:00
That brain was always there, did we miss Bahrain ’14, Monaco ’16 and all the others?
Shahryar
28th August 2017, 10:42
And US 07.
PMccarthy_is_a_legend (@pmccarthy_is_a_legend)
27th August 2017, 23:22
Watching the race I got the same feeling as Vettel described at the restart. He got too close too soon. That meant Vettel didn’t fully tool advantage of the tow. It’s a fine line, was happy to see that he could keep up with the Merc during the first stint.
tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
28th August 2017, 8:03
Hamilton gives a better explanation of what happened at the restart –
That’s a racing brain par excellence.
Tony (@ootony)
28th August 2017, 8:41
Interestingly it seams that he was too close due to Hamiltom slightly slowing.
(according to port race interview.
Ju88sy (@)
28th August 2017, 9:56
@ootony see @thegrapeunwashed comment above in Hamiltons own words, it wasn’t slowing but a well thought out defensive throttle application, combined with millimetre perfect braking at the end of Kemmel straight. In fact it was perfect braking from both of them with no sign of a lock up, which represents how both of them drove for the entire race.
tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
28th August 2017, 10:51
@ju88sy Mark Hughes supplies another fascinating insight in his race report: cars are configured to de-rate towards the end of the Kemmel straight because there is so little to be gained (the electrical energy is more useful coming out of Pouhon), but Mercedes has a driver override for extreme circumstances as at the race restart – so Vettel de-rated approaching Les Combes but Hamilton remained at full beans until the braking point; by such fractions are races won.
Great driver-centric engineering from Mercedes, in stark contrast to Honda, de-rating when Alonso unexpectedly took Pouhon flat!
Papatango
1st September 2017, 14:28
Well thought?
Based on Lewis’ own words it seems more like a lucky mistake to me:
“I broke away but didn’t have the right power mode so he started catching me up,” Hamilton said. “Initially it felt like a mistake but in actual fact it was a really good thing because if I had gone into that last corner with that gap and gone into Turn One with that gap, he would have had the momentum being three or four car lengths behind to really propel, really get a good tow.”
It wasn’t a deliberate choice of his, it was a mistake that happened to work out fine for him!