Lewis Hamilton appears to have his very own, personal cloud of volcanic ash and it continued to loom over him yesterday even in the sunny hills that sit above the Catalan capital. The British driver produced another fine race in the Spanish grand prix and looked certain to finish second behind Mark Webber, who led throughout, until on the penultimate lap his front left tyre gave way to suspected wheel-rim or possibly suspension trouble and he crashed out.
“It was a similar feeling to what happened at the Nürburgring,” said Hamilton. “This is my third or fourth tyre blow-out in my career, more than most people have in their whole lifetime. But there was no warning, the car felt great, so it was a surprise and a very disappointing end to the race.”
Those 18 points he would have garnered here would have lifted him to second place in the championship, one behind his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, who was fifth. Instead the 2008 world champion Hamilton is now back in sixth place, 21 points behind his fellow Briton, and also in the title-chasing slipstream of Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Webber, Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa. The Guardian
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“I was looking good to split the Red Bulls, and it would have been perfect for us in both world championships if I could have finished second this afternoon,” Hamilton said. “I was just nursing the car to the finish line, then I suddenly felt the steering go, and then there was immediately a failure on the left-front corner.”
“I didn’t sense anything odd before the accident – the car was feeling great – so that’s why it was such a surprise. We don’t know what went wrong, but we’ll take everything back to the McLaren Technology Centre [Woking, Surrey, UK] and work to find out.
“I think I drove a good race. I couldn’t keep up with Mark [Webber] on my second set of tyres, but I was able to get past Sebastian [Vettel] as I came out of the pits. I have to say, there were problems with some of the backmarkers today – it felt like we were lapping some of them four or five times – and some of them were very bad at getting out of the way. I appreciate that it’s not always easy for the backmarkers, and I know from the first half of last year what it’s like to be lapped, but some of them were slowing on the racing line, and in fact I nearly collided with a couple of them when they did that. It was quite difficult at times, because there was such a big speed difference. I guess it may be more difficult still at Monaco.”
“But, going back to today, I’m absolutely gutted that my accident happened so close to the finish of the race – but that’s motor racing. The guys did an incredible job all weekend, though. There are many more races to go this season, and I’ll keep my chin up. I know we can still fight for this championship.” Yahoo! Eurosport
It means Hamilton now heads into Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix 21 points adrift of team-mate Jenson Button when he might otherwise have been only a point down.
“For Lewis, it was just one of those days,” said team principal Martin Whitmarsh. “He drove brilliantly, an impressively disciplined yet excitingly combative performance.
“He posted the fastest lap of the race on his way to what would have been a richly-deserved second place had he not been forced to retire within spitting distance of the chequered flag.
“The parts will now be meticulously analysed back at the McLaren Technology Centre. Until we’ve done that we won’t be able to make any definitive statements about what we think it was that caused the problem.” The Press Association
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