The Hot Spot of the Grand Prix: A Fatal Software Bug for Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton!

Solid leader of the Australian Grand Prix for 19 laps, the situation was perfect for Lewis Hamilton. The Brit was controlling Kimi Räikkönen, his closest pursuer since the start, at nearly 3 seconds. Caution was still necessary when the Finn dived into the pits for his tire change.

As early as the next lap, Hamilton was in the pits to fit his soft tires. A well-executed protection on

“Iceman,” which allowed the Mercedes driver to come out second behind Vettel, still on his first set of tires. Being strategic, the Brit had nevertheless started a hard-charging first stint. On his new soft tires, Hamilton gained 2.7 seconds on Vettel, closing the gap to 11.3 seconds by lap 26; the moment the Virtual Safety Car appeared to clear Romain Grosjean’s damaged Haas.

The heart of the problem

At the start of the VSC, Hamilton still had the upper hand. Even under this regime, Vettel’s gap was theoretically too small to hope for a turnaround: a full pit lane passage and tire change costing 23 seconds, which was twelve more than the gap before this intervention.

But the machine went out of control on the Grey’s side. The software helping Hamilton with his speed under VSC underestimated the gap compared to Vettel and his pit stop, made on lap 27. The Scuderia Ferrari driver was only going to lose 7-8 seconds during his pit stop, as the pit lane was still limited to 60 km/h, a speed equal to some sections of the track under the VSC regime.

Vettel thus snatched the first place from Hamilton. The disadvantaged driver called his radio to debrief the situation, bewildered.

📻 HAM: “What’s happened, guys?” 😶

Can the Mercedes man get back past Vettel on the restart?#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/tMmzpao4ME

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 25, 2018

Toto Wolff highlights the bad luck theory

Cleared of any error, Lewis Hamilton was the victim of a software issue. Enough to enrage Toto Wolff, on Sky Sports.

« It’s a hard situation to accept. Everything was under control, and the pace was good. We thought we had a three-second margin. There was a bug with the software dedicated to monitoring the pace under the VSC: the gap we needed was miscalculated. Lewis did nothing wrong. »

Bearing the disappointment of his team, the executive director came to the rescue of his driver. He attacked fully. But you saw that overtaking is difficult here. And Lewis had to ease off at the end of the race given the state of his tires. Sometimes, you are lucky with the VSC or the Safety Car: today we were unlucky. We must congratulate Ferrari for finishing first and third.

In any case, the lack of success indeed haunts Lewis Hamilton in Melbourne. Poleman in the last five editions, he has only taken home one victory, in 2015.

“I did everything I was supposed to do. I’m in disbelief” – @LewisHamilton#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/EkIP8DY1Ur

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 25, 2018