Lewis Hamilton limited the damage in Barcelona

After qualifying, Lewis Hamilton had made it known that he was not giving up and still hoped to overtake Nico Rosberg. For him, there were two possibilities: either the start or the pit stops.

Finally, he had to use the seconds not to overtake his teammate but Sebastian Vettel. Indeed, he missed his start and lost a place to the Ferrari driver. He even almost bowed to the Williams of Valtteri Bottas: « I had too much wheelspin at the start. I had to fight just to stay third. From there, I knew it was going to be difficult because it’s hard to stay behind another car and even harder to overtake. »

He was also not helped by his team, which missed its first pit stop. This forced him to change strategy by opting for three stops instead of two: « I managed to stay close enough to Seb before my first stop. Unfortunately, we lost time. So we had to switch to three stops to try something different. We made the decision quite quickly since it was clear that it wouldn’t have worked to stay so long, especially as it is almost impossible to overtake on this track. Fortunately, we had the pace for it to work. »

Toto Wolff also acknowledges that the team chose to disadvantage Nico Rosberg by keeping him on track longer than planned, so he wouldn’t hinder his teammate’s comeback: “As Lewis was building the gap he needed to pass Sebastian during the third stint, we somewhat compromised Nico by keeping him on track a bit longer before his second stop. This ensured that both cars didn’t interfere with each other while they were on two different strategies. It gave Lewis the clear air he needed to build the gap necessary to secure second place.”

But the German did not seek to spark controversy despite never being truly threatened throughout the race. He is therefore focusing on delivering the same performance at the next race in Monaco, which is almost a home race for him.