Hamilton: “we had to try something special”

The gap at the end of qualifying was clear. Max Verstappen had won pole by 388 thousandths ahead Lewis Hamilton. The pilot Mercedes recognized, fatalistic, having extracted the maximum from your car.

Faced with an ultra favorite Verstappen for the race, thehe Briton tried a daring strategy. Starting on mediums, he stopped early on the fourteenth lap to put on hard tires, which however seemed ineffective.

Finally, the tires performed better than expected and Max Verstappen, who went to the end of his mediums, found himself second after his stop, quite far behind.

However, the Dutchman found himself with much fresher tires in the money time. “I suffered in the last stint,” Hamilton explained. I had to find the right balance between not attacking too much to preserve my tires, and not being caught too quickly. »

The seven-time world champion saw Verstappen melt away on him in the retros, but held on until the end. Bet won. “By stopping early, we knew it was going to be difficult to keep the pace until the end, according to the Englishman. But it had to be done. There Red Bull was superior, we had to try something special. »

This poker move allows Lewis Hamilton to win his 96th career success and to win the opening Grand Prix for the first time in five years… The day when his car was a priori below. “It’s a very good start for us,” he analyzes. Especially if we look at how the weekend unfolded. During testing, we thought we had a deficit of between 6 and 8 tenths over the Red Bulls. The team did an exceptional job. »

Lewis Hamilton is off to the best possible start on his road to an eighth crown.

Discover the full report and analysis of the Bahrain Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondent in Sakhir, in issue 2305 of AUTOhebdo, available from tomorrow evening in digital version, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.