Even salacious rumours of a punch-up in the Force India garage on Saturday
evening were played down. The team admitted that a disagreement had occurred
but denied that it was linked to Paul di Resta’s strident criticism of the
team following qualifying when he slammed their performance as
“unacceptable”.
The Scot actually had a magnificent race, claiming seventh place having
started 17th thanks to a bold one-stop strategy in which he waited 56 laps
before making his first pit stop. But his performance was merely a sidebar
to the main event.
As the usual coterie of Hollywood celebrities, grid girls and snake oil
salesmen took to the grid the big question on everyone’s lips was whether
Mercedes would be able to manage their tyre wear sufficiently to challenge
Red Bull and Ferrari.
The signs were ominous from the start as Vettel pulled clear of Hamilton with
almost indecent haste. By the second lap, Vettel was already three seconds
up on Hamilton and by the time they all came in for their first round of pit
stops between laps 15 to 18 that gap had been extended to more than eight
seconds.
The Briton was hanging in there, though, faring far better than his team-mate
Nico Rosberg whose rear tyres were “in the danger zone” just two laps into
his second tyre stint. By lap 30, the third-placed Rosberg had been passed
by both Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Ferrari’s Alonso. Of those two, it was
the Ferrari driver who was in far better shape.
Webber had lost part of his front wing lapping the Caterham of Giedo van der
Garde and Alonso took advantage, passing the Red Bull for third place and
setting his sights on Hamilton.
With the race now Vettel’s to lose – and the German did have one hairy moment
when he missed his braking point into Turn 1 and cut across the grass,
prompting his race engineer Rocky to tell him to “settle down” – it became a
gripping battle for second.
From 10 seconds following the second round of pit stops, Alonso closed at a
rate of around one second per lap to catch his former McLaren team-mate, who
was clearly feeling the pressure. Told by his race engineer that his
traction metrics were “under 2000”, Hamilton implored him: “Please, just let
me drive man!”
Hamilton could not stave off the inevitable, though. Despite putting up brave
resistance, including some desperately late braking into the chicane which
had the crowds in the grandstand there on their feet, Alonso passed Hamilton
with seven laps remaining, slipstreaming the Mercedes into Turn 1 and making
the move stick.
It was then just a question of whether Webber could also catch the Briton but
the Australian, despite earlier encouragement from his team, could not find
the pace.
Hamilton held on to claim the final podium place. An encouraging weekend, but
still work to do for Mercedes if they, or anyone else, wants to catch
Vettel.