Hamilton wins in Baku after Vettel lock-up and Bottas puncture; Briton takes championship lead for first time in 2018
Tuesday 11 December 2018 14:35, UK
Lewis Hamilton claimed the luckiest victory of his career at the Azerbaijan GP, Monday's national newspapers say.
The reigning world champion was below his best all weekend but snatched his first win of 2018 after title rival Sebastian Vettel's mistake and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas suffered a puncture in the lead with two laps remaining.
With Vettel finishing fourth after his late lock-up, victory ensured Hamilton opened up a four-point lead at the top of the Drivers' Championship.
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"Lewis Hamilton has won in the wet, in tight corners, in jalopies, by miles and by fractions. But career win No 63 on Sunday was the luckiest of his life," Jonathan McEvoy wrote in the Daily Mail.
"So much so that the world champion arrived on the podium late, having taken time out to commiserate with his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, whose right rear tyre blew, thus denying him victory and providing the final twist of a crazy Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
"Hamilton was commendably embarrassed to be on the top step. But, no doubt, grateful too, for by triumphing for the first time since October, he went top of the World Championship table - four points ahead of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, whose single late error of the weekend contributed significantly itself to the topsy-turvy outcome."
The Times' John Westerby said Hamilton's perseverance in tricky conditions had been rewarded with the good fortune that he had been missing in the opening three races, which included losing the Australian GP lead by a computer glitch and a gearbox penalty compromising him in Bahrain.
"For all the millions of pounds spent on the finest engineering, the long weeks of testing and the hours of fine-tuning, sometimes Formula One races will be won by nothing more than sheer serendipity," Westerby wrote.
"It remains to be seen whether the victory that dropped into Lewis Hamilton's lap yesterday will change the trajectory of a season that has begun uncertainly, but the freakish puncture suffered by Valtteri Bottas, his team-mate, with only two laps remaining of this dramatic Azerbaijan Grand Prix, certainly gave him the dose of luck that had been absent from the previous three races.
"Although his victory slaked a growing thirst for a return to the top step of the podium, the circumstance of his success left Hamilton feeling that he had been rewarded for little more than bloody-minded perseverance."
But despite Hamilton's win and Bottas' performance, The Guardian's Giles Richards pointed out that Mercedes appear no closer to solving the issues that has seen their W09 trailing Ferrari on out-right performance.
"Hamilton felt for Bottas but knows that he and his team have real work ahead," he wrote.
"Their issue with bringing the tyres up to temperature looked no closer to being solved in Baku and he acknowledged that they had to address it.
"For the moment, however, he leaves with a lead, favoured by fortune but also more than aware that he kept his head and seized the reward.
"It was cause for the four-time world champion to remember the lesson he had learned in karting. 'I never give up,' he said. 'It has been a while since I have been reminded of that lesson my dad taught me years ago. I kept pushing and things turned out the way they did and that was a realisation of how true that mindset is'."
