Bahrain disaster angers Hamilton
A DESPONDENT Lewis Hamilton
stormed away from the
Sakhir Circuit after describing
his Bahrain Grand Prix as a disaster''.
Hamilton endured two minutes
of madness at the start of
the race, which resulted in the 23-
year-old finishing 13th, the worst
finishing position of his 20
grands prix career.
It was the culmination of a
miserable weekend for Hamilton
in the wake of his shunt in Friday's
practice, when he slammed
broadside into a tyre wall after
losing control of his McLaren.
Although clearly lacking Ferrari's
pace, Hamilton at least had
a shot at a podium finish in starting
from third on the grid.
But at the start the Briton
failed to hit the anti-stall switch,
leaving him stranded on the grid
as the field streamed by.
When he finally managed to
pull away, Hamilton found himself
in a midfield battle heading
into the first corner and around
lap one, by the end of which he
had climbed to ninth place.
But then encountering old adversary
Fernando Alonso, Hamilton
ran into the back of the
Spaniard's Renault, losing his
nose cone in the process.
Hamilton managed to limp
back to the pits for a new nose,
but in returning to the track in
19th place, his race was effectively
over.
After starting the weekend
with a three-point lead in the title
race, he now trails world champion
Kimi Raikkonen by five
after the Finn finished second behind
Ferrari team-mate Felipe
Massa.
Hamilton then conducted one
speedy interview before hastily
leaving the track, clearly in an
angry frame of mind, but only
with himself.
The race was a disaster. It was
a very poor performance, and I let
the team down today,'' assessed
Hamilton.
It was a very poor performance.
It went bad from the beginning,
and as a professional
when you start off badly you
need to pick up the pieces and at
least deliver some points.
I didn't do any of that for the
team, but I'll keep my chin up,
bounce back and move on at the
next race.
There's still a long way to go,
so don't count me out yet.''
When asked about his accident
with Alonso, he replied: I had a
collision with Fernando which
lost us the whole race altogether.
I was behind him, I went to
move to the right, he went to
move to the right, and I ended up
going up the back of him somehow.
It's racing.
I'm always the first to blame
myself, and to be honest I feel
that is the right way to go.''
It is no secret there is no love
lost between Alonso and Hamilton
after their fall-out last year
during an acrimonious time at
McLaren.
However, in this instance, the
trouble was all of Hamilton's own
making, with Alonso suggesting
he was perhaps trying too hard to
regain the ground he lost off the
grid.
In the first couple of laps
when you are running eighth or
ninth, you try to recover places
too quickly,'' explained Alonso.
On lap one he touched me at
turn four, hitting the rear diffuser,
then on lap two he jumped
into my rear wing.
I don't know why. I was flat
out, and the McLaren is quite
quick in the straights.
I guess we were running too
close, and maybe he didn't realise
how close we were.''
Renault head of engineering
Pat Symonds showed data to a
number of media personnel to
disprove the theory Alonso had
deliberately lifted off the throttle.
Fernando came out of the
turn and accelerated down the
straight into fifth gear, hitting
227kph, full throttle, no touching
of the brakes or anything like
that,'' said Symonds.
You can see on the accelerometer
the impact, that he
got hit from behind.
So all I can say from our side
is there's no blame attributable
to Fernando, which is what some
of the speculation might be.
There's no suggestion in any
of the data that anything untoward
happened. You don't need
to be an expert to see that.''
After coming under pressure
for failing to score a point in the
opening two races in Australia
and Malaysia, Massa cruised to
his second successive victory in
Bahrain, and sixth of his career.
The Brazilian spearheaded a
Ferrari one-two, with Raikkonen
on the podium for the 50th time
in 123 grands prix, beating
Robert Kubica into third in his
BMW Sauber after the Pole had
started on pole.
Nick Heidfeld was fourth to
give BMW Sauber 11 points from
the race and lift them into the
lead in the constructors' championship
for the first time in the
team's history.
Heikki Kovalainen barely salvaged
a miserable day for
McLaren with fifth, followed by
Jarno Trulli in his Toyota, the
Red Bull of Mark Webber and
Williams of Nico Rosberg.
Honda's Jenson Button retired
on lap 19 after an accident with
David Coulthard, who finished
19th, while Super Aguri's Anthony
Davidson was 16th.
9:41am Monday 7th April 2008
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