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Lewis Hamilton’s first win for Ferrari at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix last weekend ignited a debate.
Without a virtual safety car caused by Fernando Alonso’s retirement, would Hamilton still have taken victory? The Briton was gifted a cheap pit stop, which allowed him to re-emerge in the lead.
Hamilton’s pace was formidable. After making his second stop, he gained 19 seconds in eight laps, and his eventual winning margin (just under 20 seconds) was his largest of the season, but without the VSC, he would have had to pass the two Mercedes – a tricky task given Ferrari’s well-known power deficit.
If Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were in equal machinery for their entire F1 careers, who would have been better?
Why Lewis Hamilton really should be third in the standings
“With the three stops, the risk is to finish in traffic,” Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra explained, via The Race. “On paper, in free air, three stops is faster, that’s clear. “But to overtake three drivers, and fast drivers like Norris, Antonelli and Russell, would have been a different story.”
However, the message from Mercedes was that Hamilton was probably fast enough to win regardless, so perhaps the luck narrative doesn’t stand up here.
But looking back to earlier races, the seven-time world champion has certainly had some good fortune. In Miami, Charles Leclerc’s late crash and subsequent penalty promoted him from seventh to sixth.
Lewis Hamilton is now only missing a Grand Prix pole position for Ferrari 🏆 Predict when it will come?
In Canada, Hamilton arguably would have finished fifth without George Russell’s retirement and a baffling intermediate tyre gamble from the two McLarens. He ultimately crossed the line second.
And in Monaco, Hamilton looked set to finish third after receiving a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. These penalties have been extremely controversial – the appeals process has dominated the news cycle since – but the fact remains that the majority of drivers objectively complied with the rules.
Leclerc was gaining on Hamilton at such a rate that the two Ferraris were set to swap places at the chequered flag, only for Lance Stroll’s crash to bring out the safety car. Hamilton was allowed to clear his record in the pit lane, with an incredulous Leclerc following him in (and later crashing out).
Hamilton’s fans would argue, with some justification, that other drivers and teams are making mistakes, while he is using his experience to maximise his points. Ferrari’s reliability has been one of their biggest assets so far.
But dock Hamilton the cumulative 11 points (over a span of just three weekends), and he drops back to third in the standings behind George Russell, one of the ‘unluckiest’ drivers in F1 this year.
That’s where Hamilton should be right now on pure performance, which raises questions about whether he’s truly in the title fight. And as Kimi Antonelli’s retirement in Barcelona demonstrated, luck has a habit of evening itself out over the course of a season.
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