Let’s do a little speculating; how good a chance did Lewis Hamilton really have of winning in Korea?
While the drivers were circulating behind the pace car (lap 4-17) we got to listen to the radio conversation between Hamilton and his race engineer Andy Lathum on the broadcast. Of the drivers at the front Hamilton seemed to be the one most keen to get the racing going.
Unfortunately, when the safety car did pull off on lap-17 he was slow to react and got overtaken by Niko Rosberg at the restart.
As it happens, that may have been a little luck. Rosberg got taken out on the next lap by the spinning Webber, it would have been Hamilton that had been collected by the out of control Red Bull driver.
During the race Alonso lost second place to Hamilton because of a slow Ferrari pit stop. The team had problems when he changed from wet to intermediate tyres. This meant that he came out in third behind leader Vettel and Hamilton (who had pitted the previous lap).
The following lap Hamilton braked way too late into turn-1 and ran wide into the corner. This opened the door wide open and Alonso comfortably took second place back. It was a mistake by Hamilton rather than a daring, brilliantly executed pass.
This meant the Ferrari driver, not Hamilton, took the lead when the Renault engine in Sebastian Vettels Red Bull comprehensively let go on lap 44.
A quick summary of this years engine rules (as I understand them), a driver is allowed eight engines, no rebuilds. It’s up to the teams and engine builders as to how they swap the eight engines in and out of the cars to manage all qualifying, practice and racing. Renault said the engine in Vettels car was about 1600KM into its 2000KM design life when it let go.
Back to the question I asked. If he had not made the error into turn-1 could Hamilton have kept the lead, or was Alonso that much faster?
So it’s speculation time… Alonso was clearly faster than Hamilton at the end of the race. McLaren’s tyres were heavily worn, which caused the car to understeer (contributed to the mistake? Maybe), but Hamilton had pretty much matched Vettel and Alonso for time. The gaps had stayed fairly consistent between the cars before and after the round of tire changes.
I think he could have held Alonso off for the win, stay on line and it’s very, very difficult to get past.
If Hamilton had hung on and won, that would have given the McLaren driver a 14-point turnaround against Alonso and put him right into the center of the drivers’ championship battle. Today he is 21 points behind Alonso, had he kept his lead he’d be only 7 points behind.
Lets be clear Vettel looked very, very fast, but Alonso seems to be capable of a very similar pace and was probably the best driver on the day. Alonso stayed out of trouble, looked comfortable and never let a botched pit-stop get to him. He was given a couple of opportunities on the track and took then decisively.
Three wins in four races, and his sixth podium in the last seven races. He is clearly the on form driver, Ferrari has given him a competitive and reliable car and it’s up to him and the team to make it happen.
Clearly Hamilton’s mistake made life more difficult for himself, but there are lots of points left and after Vettels DNF a lot of teams will be even more worried about engines over the next couple of races. This is fun.