Lewis Hamilton has scored some crushing victories in the 2020 Formula 1 season, and some by smaller margins. One was even earned three-wheeling his way to the finish line with a puncture in a huge test of judgement and composure as Max Verstappen closed in.
But for all the glory of this season, arguably none of his points have been earned quite like the seven points he picked up in the Italian Grand Prix.
Hamilton should have racked up a commanding sixth win of the year at Monza and been just one victory short of equalling Michael Schumacher’s all-time record. But a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for pitting when the pitlane was closed put paid to that and left him 17th, 30 seconds adrift of the lead and 20-odd seconds behind the next car.
Over the course of 24 laps or so he had to make amends, Hamilton rose to seventh and finished just 17 seconds behind eventual race winner Pierre Gasly despite passing eight cars on track.
He picked up the fastest lap bonus point for good measure to minimise team-mate Valtteri Bottas’s gain to just three points – with Bottas only 10s clear of Hamilton at the flag, having been 24s clear when Hamilton rejoined the race post-penalty.
The fastest car at Monza was Mercedes’ W11, but just ask Valtteri Bottas if that meant it was an easy car to overtake with. Without a full suite of engine modes available – due to the FIA introducing a new related rule – and with a higher-downforce set-up designed to get pole position and disappear in clear air, it meant progress was not simple.
Hamilton discovered that for himself when he rejoined after his race-changing penalty the better part of 20-seconds behind Alex Albon, caught the Red Bull at a rate of more than two seconds a lap – then spent three laps working out how to get past.
“I’ve been doing this a long time and I felt still incredibly hungry when I came out from that pitstop,” said Hamilton. “It’s definitely frustrating, of course. But I was just chasing and chasing and chasing.
“Chasing a 30-second gap is not particularly the fun part, the fun part’s when you get to get close and start racing. I wish that started earlier.
“But once I finally caught and I couldn’t get by, of course, there were moments I didn’t think I was going to get anywhere.”
One advantage that Hamilton had, in addition to picking off slower cars than Bottas who was firmly stuck higher up the order, is that the field was slowly spacing out over the course of the second part of the grand prix.
So while Albon was a tough nut to crack initially, Hamilton was able to gradually isolate each victim and pounce without much delay. He cleared George Russell’s Williams and Romain Grosjean’s Haas in successive laps straight after passing Albon. Three laps later he caught and passed the other Williams of Nicholas Latifi, the next lap it was Kimi Raikkonen’s ailing Alfa Romeo.
Another couple of laps in clear air followed before Sergio Perez yielded ninth, two laps later Hamilton was past Daniil Kvyat for eighth and on the final lap, he stole seventh from Esteban Ocon.
The bursts of clear air were probably useful for Hamilton to avoid slipping into a cooling drama given how hard he was pushing, but they also highlight just how much pace he had versus the cars around him and how much time he was losing in traffic – sometimes more than two seconds slower than his best.
He had a much more erratic deviation from his average laptime, especially when compared to race winner Gasly and Bottas – despite being half a second a lap faster than them on average over this stint, the variation in his lap times was more than seven-tenths of a second. Gasly and Bottas were a near-identical 0.366s and 0.358s respectively.
That could have got under Hamilton’s skin as he saw precious race time slip away, especially as Mercedes had predicted a recovery to fifth place (where Bottas ended up). In the end, that aim was too optimistic – he lost 4.5s alone when he caught Albon – but even accounting for the laps in which he lost the most time versus his own average getting to fifth was a stretch on paper. And in reality, seventh was excellent.
“I just kept pushing, trying to be patient,” said Hamilton. “I didn’t make any mistakes, and seventh was the best that I could do.
“But to come away with still that many points and the fastest lap, which is helpful, and I don’t really know what happened with Max, I’m not really quite sure why Valtteri was fifth – but talk about damage limitation!
“I’m definitely grateful for it.”
No wonder, given he added seven points to his advantage over Verstappen, who retired with an engine issue, and his lead over Bottas stands at a handsome 47 points. The overriding emotion at Mercedes was the lament of a missed opportunity, though.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was full of praise for Hamilton’s “really good” recovery drive, but the silver lining wasn’t his main takeaway: “Obviously it’s a lost race for him, and the team. And this sentiment prevails.”
Hamilton held his hands up for the role he played in being in that situation. He could have seen the light panels indicating the pitlane was closed, though whether he should depends on how generous you want to be.
“I’m grateful for the lessons learned today,” he said. “These are the days that you grow the most I think because none of us love losing.
“So, we sit and do the debrief and nobody’s happy but we all have to hold each other accountable.
“I definitely hold myself accountable for not seeing those signs, but I think it’s a part of a whole sequence of things that we did as a team, which weren’t perfect.”
At least the recovery job was. All a driver can do after the maximum result is taken out of their hands is play the new situation as strongly as possible.
No amount of playing up a seventh-place finish can disguise the fact this was an off-day for Hamilton in terms of the result. But finding a way to raise the floor of his season is as important to his march to the title as wins that represent the ceiling.
Listen to “Italian Grand Prix review” on Spreaker.
