(Motorsport-Total.com) – A late Virtual Safety Car (VSC) due to debris temporarily halted Lewis Hamilton’s charge to the podium at the Dutch Grand Prix. His attack on third-placed George Russell, who was running on heavily worn hard tires, was interrupted for one lap.
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Hamilton’s momentum suddenly disappeared, and the remaining time was no longer enough to get back into striking distance and pass his former teammate. Previously, Hamilton’s starting position had already been compromised by being stuck a little behind Charles Leclerc, who had caught up to Russell but could not find a way past until Russell’s stop on lap 40.
When Leclerc pitted three laps later, the way was finally clear for Hamilton. Without knowing it himself, he embarked on an ambitious one-stop strategy. Ferrari assumed that the seven-time world champion would run through to the end of the race.
The determination with which he defended his temporary lead against Kimi Antonelli and Lando Norris underscored that he was fighting for every single position.
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur later confirmed this and explained that the lack of communication was deliberately chosen to avoid alerting the competition over the radio.
Finally, a VSC – triggered by Esteban Ocon’s retirement a few laps before the late debris yellow phase – gave Ferrari the necessary window to bring Hamilton in and fit him with fresh soft tires. This enabled the late duel with Russell in the first place, even though Hamilton ultimately ran out of time in the final phase to complete the overtaking maneuver.
The Mathematics of the Laps
But what would the race have looked like without the VSC? Could Hamilton have successfully executed the one-stop strategy?
To calculate out the VSC phases, some plausible assumptions must be made. For Hamilton’s pace, we take the average of his lap times from lap 39 to 53 in largely free running as a benchmark. This results in a base time of 1:16.431 minutes, which we also use for his lap 55 instead of the actual in-lap. Lap 54 remains unchanged at 1:18.011 minutes, as he lost time there in a duel with Antonelli and Norris.
For simplicity, we do not calculate any further tire degradation from this point and assume that Hamilton would have completed every remaining lap in 1:16.431 minutes.
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For Russell, we use his real lap times and replace the VSC phases with the average of the surrounding laps. For laps 55 to 57, we take the average of lap 54 (1:15.654 minutes) and lap 58 (1:15.581 minutes), which is 1:15.618 minutes. The same method is applied for lap 70 using the values from laps 69 and 71 (1:16.324 minutes).
Adding these lap times together and considering Hamilton’s deficit to Russell at the end of lap 38 (3.142 seconds) results in a clear trend for the race progression from lap 39 to 72.
No Chance for Third Place?
In this scenario, Russell would have been 4.359 seconds faster overall throughout the stint despite his additional pit stop. Since he was able to set times about one second faster than Hamilton thanks to the tire advantage, an overtaking maneuver by Russell would have been only a matter of time.
Calculating the gaps lap by lap, Russell would have been within striking distance at the end of lap 60 and could have passed no earlier than lap 61.
Even if Hamilton’s tire wear had been offset by the time gain from the lower vehicle weight (fuel consumption), Russell would most likely have reclaimed third place.
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For Hamilton to have stayed ahead, the time gain from the decreasing weight would have had to exceed tire degradation by about 0.07 seconds per lap. This is unrealistic, as even Russell on fresher tires did not run low 1:15s towards the end of the race – exactly what Hamilton would have had to achieve.
In reality, a significant performance drop would have to be factored in with such old tires, making the one-stop strategy at best wishful thinking.
The pit stop during the VSC phase thus significantly improved Hamilton’s chances. Even though it ultimately fell just short, the fresh soft tire in the final sprint gave him the opportunity to close a gap of almost seven seconds in the closing stages.
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