Lewis Hamilton accuses Sebastian Vettel of using illegal safety car tactics during Azerbaijan Grand Prix restarts

Sometimes the race does not always fall to the fastest. Usually Lewis Hamilton is one of them, and on several occasions in the early going in Baku in Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix he still was, pushing his improved Mercedes very hard in pursuit as he took the fight to arch-rival Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari.

But this time his speed, though impressive, came at the expense of his tyres and he was the first to admit that after scoring the luckiest victory of his career. And that team-mate Valtteri Bottas would have been a more deserving winner after conserving his tyres early on and then having the speed to keep Vettel under serious pressure until the spectacular collision between the Red Bull drivers triggered the safety car intervention that unstitched Ferrari and led Vettel into one of his impetuous errors. Bottas was heading for victory when a puncture stopped him with just two laps left, handing Hamilton the win and the lead of the world championship.

He thus found himself in the unusual situation of inheriting his 63rd success, and it did not sit well on his warrior’s shoulders.

Of course, he wasn’t going to complain about winning. You take the ups as well as the downs in this business, and he’s lost plenty of wins himself in his career. But neither was he going to be all dancing and finger twirling on the podium. Not in those circumstances.

“We never get a day back in our lives,” he said. “And it’s the same for a lost win. This was a lottery race. I’m not sure whether I would use the word gifted to explain how I won it, but I felt I was stood on the podium where Valtteri should have been.”

Grace in defeat is one thing, but grace in inherited victory is another. Hamilton is a fighter, he likes to feel he won by out-driving and out-smarting the other guys. He arrived late for the press conference because he followed his heart and nipped in to offer consolation to Bottas, who had done the better job.

“I ran up to the Mercedes office because I wanted to tell Valtteri what a great job he had done,” he admitted. “In the circumstances, I wanted to try and give him a little lift.”

That simple act of empathy brought tears to the Finn.

“It doesn’t feel like justice for Australia, or relief, either,” Hamilton continued. “It’s actually quite humbling. I kept pushing and never gave up, hoping something would happen, and it did.

“I didn’t need any reminders that you have to keep pushing. I’ve spent my whole life climbing up a hill and just sliding back down it. You just keep going. That philosophy affects all of life. You try and you fail, and you eventually succeed.

“But I didn’t feel worthy of the win. I made a lot of mistakes today, which I don’t normally do. My normal level is eagle, birdie, but today it was more par and a couple of bogies! I wouldn’t have caught and passed Valtteri in the final laps without his problem.”

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He was less impressed with Sebastian Vettel, who infamously deliberately drove into him in this race last year, criticising the German’s tactics during the two restarts and vowing to raise the matter in the next drivers’ briefing in Spain in two weeks’ time.

“Seb was tricky,” he said. “The rules say that when the safety car is preparing to go in you don’t go start then stop, gas then brake, trying to fake the guy behind to catch them sleeping.”

That was what Vettel accused him of in their encounter in last year’s race, effectively brake testing him, but that was disproved by the stewards and Mercedes’ telemetry.

“I have always abided by that rule on every restart. But in Australia Seb did the start then stop thing and I nearly ran into the back of him.

“Today, on that first restart, he did it four times. I told the team to tell Charlie [race director Charlie Whiting] and apparently he told the stewards, but they chose not to do anything. Apparently they said everyone does that, but we were the leaders, so if one of us does that the effect cascades down. I’m concerned that they have set a precedent that you will then see in F2, GP3 and Formula 4. We need to get that rectified.”

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He also had a very clear message for his Mercedes team. We have improved, but not enough.

“Our pace varied too much. Ferrari switched their tyres on quicker than we did. Then all of a sudden our car worked better and I could rein Sebastian in. I knew if I could stay on trajectory I could reel him in, but then a lock-up left me compete baffled because I hadn’t been expecting it. It was really strange. That was definitely frustrating, and after that it was a struggle. I got way out of sync, and regarding the pit stop window with the time I needed on Valtteri, one moment I was safe, then unsafe, I had traffic then no traffic. It was the most challenging race I’ve driven, like a wet race but held in the dry.

“We have improved our car, but if we continue on our current trajectory we will need more tricky races like this. We’ve had two weird ones which have kept us in the mix, but we can’t rely on just that. We need to do more.”