SAO PAULO, Brazil — Lewis Hamilton keeps raising the bar. Maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise anymore.
Hamilton had to wait a couple of months to score his 101st F1 victory but when it came, it came in a style Hamilton has turned into an art form. Give Hamilton an ordinary car and he will deliver great things. Give him the rocket ship he drove on Sunday and he might as well be on a different circuit to the rest.
Without any of the drama that unfolded over the course of the last 72 hours at Interlagos, Hamilton and Mercedes likely would have won sprint qualifying and the race which followed at a canter. As it turned out, Hamilton was forced on multiple occasions to dig deep to ensure the championship did not slip further from his grasp.
As things mounted up against Hamilton at the beginning of the weekend it was clear Red Bull sensed this could be the moment to move the title fight one step closer towards Max Verstappen’s coronation as champion. The fact Hamilton came out of it having cut the gap to Verstappen is a testimony to both his ability and his constant habit of performing at his best when the chips are down and the odds are stacked against him.
Verstappen had increased the gap to 21 points on Saturday courtesy of the two points he scored for finishing second in the sprint race, but by catching and passing the Red Bull driver on Sunday, Hamilton ensured he left Brazil 14 points behind with three places left to run.
It sets the climax to the season up perfectly, with two new F1 venues in Qatar and Saudi to come. It also keeps the outcome of the championship firmly in Hamilton’s hands — were Hamilton to win those two events with Verstappen second and a different driver scoring the bonus point awarded to the fastest lap of the race, then the two drivers would go to the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix level on points.
That’s a tantalising prospect and one that would seem a worthy conclusion to what was already the best title fight of the modern era a…
Source : espn
