Despite team orders giving him the victory in the Russian Grand Prix, four-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton will not be a “tainted” champion if he wins this year’s title.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Valtteri Bottas took the pole position for the 16th race of the 21-race 2018 Formula 1 season, the Russian Grand Prix, and he appeared to be well on his way to winning it just before the halfway mark.
Trailing only Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, who had not yet made his pit stop, Bottas looked poised to earn his first victory since he won the 2017 season finale, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
However, on lap 25 of the 53-lap race around the 18-turn, 3.634-mile (5.848-kilometer) Sochi Autodrom road course in Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, Mercedes ordered Bottas to let teammate Lewis Hamilton pass him since Hamilton claimed to have a blister on one of his tires that would have made him vulnerable to being passed by Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
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But when it became clear that Hamilton would win the race and Bottas would finish in second place, Bottas asked the team on the radio when the two drivers would swap positions. He was told that they would not, effectively meaning that his win had been handed to Hamilton by the team.
Hamilton, who led the driver standings over Vettel by 40 points (281 to 241) coming into the race with six races remaining on the schedule, ended up leaving the Russian Grand Prix with a 50-point lead (306 to 256) over Vettel as opposed to a 43-point lead (299 to 256).
With five races to go, Vettel will need pretty much everything to go his way in order to even have a chance to catch Hamilton and win this year’s championship. This is the case with him trailing Hamilton by 50 points, and it would be the case with him trailing him by 43 points as well.
All Mercedes did by telling Bottas to move aside for Hamilton was make it more likely that Hamilton will be able to clinch this year’s championship over Vettel sooner. Unless Mercedes believe that they have some kind of weakness or weaknesses that would give Vettel a huge advantage over Hamilton over the course of the season’s final five races, they did not do this because they fear that Hamilton will lose his lead in the driver standings over Vettel.
The seven points that Hamilton gained because of this will not be the difference between him winning and losing this year’s championship assuming he wins it, which he likely will. He has outperformed Vettel for the majority of the season and has dominated him as of late.
One use of team orders that will likely end up proving to be insignificant as far as Hamilton’s championship bid is concerned will not make him a “tainted” champion by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t know if there is anyone out there who doesn’t get frustrated when team orders are executed, but the mere suggestion of this is completely laughable.
Would you consider Lewis Hamilton a “tainted” champion if he is able to secure the 2018 Formula 1 championship after team orders were used to give him the victory in the Russian Grand Prix over teammate Valtteri Bottas?