Race Analysis - Points damage

By Dan Knutson

Once Lewis Hamilton had won the pole in his Mercedes, Sebastian Vettel, who lined up third in his Ferrari, knew he would have to do some damage control on the points front. Vettel arrived in France leading Hamilton by a single point in the drivers' championship. Ideally, Vettel wanted to finish ahead of Hamilton in the French Grand Prix to extend his points lead. Failing that, Vettel needed to control things so the points advantage Hamilton would gain would as small as possible. But things didn't work out that way as Hamilton won and Vettel finished fifth. Here's how it happened.

POWER UP

Having finally been satisfied with the reliability worries of its latest specification engine, Mercedes brought them to France. So Hamilton and the other Mercedes runners had more power.

LOCK OUT

Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas locked out the front row of the grid for the 53-lap race. Row two consisted of Vettel and Max Verstappen (Red Bull), while Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) and Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) filled row three.

CRUCIAL BLOWOUT

"The start is going to be crucial," said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.

"We have to blow them off," concurred Mercedes man Niki Lauda.

UNLOCKED

Vettel unlocked that Mercedes one/two in a way that would prove damaging to both himself and Bottas.

SMASH

Vettel made a lightening start and wanted to get alongside Bottas in the first turn. Then Vettel drove into the Mercedes.

"My start was very good," Vettel said, "but then I had no place to go. I tried to get out of it, but in Turn 1 obviously we got very tight. I was very close to Lewis in front and Valtteri tried to obviously get his position back. He was under pressure from Max, I think, as far as I saw as well. And then I had no grip, lost the car, couldn't open and disappear, because there were people, and obviously Valtteri was the one that I hit."

LOST ONE

"My race was lost in Turn 1," Bottas said. "I was on the outside going into it, and I knew that keeping that line would put me on the inside for Turn 2. Then suddenly I got a hit from behind, had a puncture and damaged my floor."

HINDSIGHT

Was there anything Vettel could have done to avoid the clash?

"Well in the end," he said, "the way I look at it with hindsight, I would have liked to have a worse start, because then it would have been more straightforward, I wouldn't be in that position. From the inside it didn't feel or didn't appear that there was a lot I could have done differently. I tried to get out of it. Obviously, you don't hit the brakes 200 meters before the corner just because you think it could be a bad spot to be in. You still try to be competitive."

BYE BYE LEWIS

Hamilton took the lead and was never challenged.

"I was very comfortable with the balance this afternoon," he said. "Max had decent pace, but I could maintain the gap at around five seconds."

NOT TOO FAR

Verstappen, who had steered around the crashes into second place, maintained that position.

"As soon as we got to Turn 2 I was relieved not to have had contact," he said, "so from there it was just about managing my own race, which was fairly straightforward. I could see Lewis managing the pace but we were still not far off without pushing the car too much."

DRIVE THROUGH

Vettel and Bottas stopped for the soft compound Pirelli slicks at the end of lap 1 and planned to try complete the race on that one set of tires. They proceeded to drive through the field but, towards the end, both had to pit again for a new set of rubber.

5 FOR 5

The stewards ruled that Vettel had caused the collision, and they gave car No 5 a five second penalty. In the end, it made no difference whatsoever to Vettel's fifth place finish.

SLIDING

"The car was quite damaged and I could feel the lack of rear end," said Bottas who finished seventh. "I was sliding around and had to do a second pit stop which was unfortunately slow so we lost more time there."

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

Where would Vettel have finished without the first lap crash?

"Where I would have been, I don't know is the answer because I had a different race after the first lap," he said after finishing fifth. "But I think we were a lot better than in Barcelona."

TOO FAR

Raikkonen took third place away from Ricciardo who had a damaged front wing. They were too far back to affect Hamilton's race, but by finishing third and fourth they took valuable points away from Vettel.

A GAIN OF 15

So Hamilton, who had been one point behind Vettel, now leads him by 14 points. That is a net gain of 15.

KEEP GOING

Earlier this season both Vettel and Hamilton had, at one stage, a 17-point lead over the other. Now the momentum has switched back to Hamilton and Mercedes.

"Everybody in the team should be feeling happy today for the good work they have done," Hamilton said. "But there's a long way to go and we'll keep approaching the rest of the season like we approached today."