As we all know, Sebastian Vettel won the opening Grand Prix of the 2018 season in Australia on Sunday.
But the driver of the weekend, was reigning Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
His sensational lap on Saturday to take pole position was something to be admired and he looked the class of the field during the race as well.
But after covering the pit-stop of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, Hamilton lost the lead of the race to Vettel, who had qualified third.
The German, former four-time Formula One World Champion was just going to complete a longer first stint and would have, most likely, dropped back into third place after his pit-stop.
However a Virtual Safety Car period, enabled Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to maintain the lead of the race. As a Mercedes software glitch had enabled him to be within that VSC window to leap-frog Hamilton.
‘I am in disbelief because l did everything l was supposed to do, I drove as well as l could and l didn’t put a foot wrong.’ Hamilton told Sky Sports.
‘I don’t fully understand at the moment, they don’t still fully understand it still, They couldn’t give me an exact reason as to why it was the way it was. I can’t really say how I feel about it, but it’s never easy to lose a grand prix.’
Mercedes would have been tracking Vettel by GPS and their calculations should have given Hamilton the knowledge to hold a big enough lead over Vettel to prevent that scenario from ever happening.
Hamilton continued: ‘In the race I had extra tools – I could have been further ahead by the first pit stop. I could have been further ahead after [the pit stop], But there were so many good things we could have done, but if one thing’s telling you one thing and you think you’re doing it to the book and within the limit then there is nothing you can do.’
It of course is the second time this has happened to Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton.
The Brit lost the 2015 Monaco Grand Prix due to Mercedes calculating distances incorrectly using GPS.
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