Papers: Hamilton v Vettel tipped to go all the way to Abu Dhabi
Monday 15 May 2017 11:04, UK
Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel duel for the 2017 title is set to remain close all the way to Abu Dhabi with the multiple champions in "a high-speed fight to call themselves the best of their time", according to the post-Spanish GP newspapers.
The Mercedes and Ferrari drivers' race-long fight for victory at Barcelona, and the realisation that their first head-to-head title fight looks here to stay, captured the imagination of the nationals on Monday morning.
"Two men's wheels were separated by fractions of an inch in a high-speed fight to call themselves the best of their time," wrote Jonathan McEvoy in the Daily Mail after Hamilton passed Vettel on track for victory.
"Perhaps even Ernest Hemingway would have marvelled at the sporting machismo on show on Sunday from Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel at the Circuit de Catalunya."
And, with the pair now a long way clear of the rest of the field in the Drivers' Championship, McEvoy added: "Nobody else is near them at the moment."
While the 2017 grid's only other multiple former champion, Fernando Alonso, remains hamstrung by his McLaren machinery, Hamilton and Vettel are fast turning the season into a defining battle of this F1 era.
"Barely the width of a sheet of sugar paper can separate Hamilton and Vettel on this evidence," said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph.
"It is testament to their pre-eminence - and to the skill of their teams in the technological arms race - that even though both cars arrived in Barcelona with upgrades galore, they have never been closer on the track. A mere 51 hundredths of a second apart in qualifying, they jousted with the same ferocity throughout the grand prix, raising the prospect of a tussle that could extend unabated until the season's climax in Abu Dhabi."
While the pair had a difference of opinion about their first battle at Turn One, when Hamilton was forced wide off the track, the conversation in the post-race press conference was noticeably jovial rather than tense.
"Thus far the pair's relationship has remained friendly and defined by both drivers repeatedly expressing respect for one another," wrote the Guardian's Giles Richards.
"They came as close as they ever have on track in Spain and, while for a moment it appeared that the gloves might be coming off, by the close smiles, laughter and mutual respect were once again the order of the day. If this fight is going to include needle, neither seems interested in starting it yet.
"The contrast with Hamilton's relationship with his former team-mate Nico Rosberg could not be starker."
There was also praise for Mercedes and their strategists for the pit calls that set up Hamilton's shot at overtaking the championship leader after he dropped behind at the start.
"So often in Formula 1 it can come down to the driver's ability or a simple strategy call," wrote The Times' Rebecca Clancy.
"But in Barcelona the victory was a combination of everything coming together at the right time."
And Brown added: "The level of threat from Ferrari has brought out another dimension in Mercedes, who are compelled to be tougher, cleverer and more adaptable than at any stage of their three-and-a-half-year supremacy in the sport."
Don't miss the final word on the Spanish GP in the F1 Report on Wednesday at 8.30pm on Sky F1. Leading F1 journalist Peter Windsor joins Natalie Pinkham and Marc Priestley to look back at all the Barcelona action
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