The Mercedes team hardly put a foot wrong in steering Lewis Hamilton to a third Formula One World Championship title in 2015, but they did manage to blunder big time in Monaco where, by virtue of an unscheduled, unnecessary, late pit stop, they contrived to snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory. Ironically, ahead of the race, Mercedes announced they had extended their contract with Hamilton until the end of 2018. In the wake of the Monaco fiasco, Hamilton could have been forgiven for briefly wondering if there was a get-out clause.
Up until lap 64 of 78, it had all been business as usual. After qualifying on pole, Hamilton led from the start, and went on to establish a lead of almost 20 seconds over his team-mate Nico Rosberg and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Then 17-year-old Max Verstappen – the youngest driver in F1 history – crashed his Toro Rosso into the back of Romain Grosjean’s Lotus at Sainte Devote, bringing out the safety car. Hamilton was quickly pitted over a minor concern about the heat in his tyres, the Mercedes team convinced that they could return him to the action ahead of his pursuers. However, they had miscalculated badly, and Hamilton emerged from the pits in third place behind Rosberg and Vettel. As race leader, Hamilton had caught up with the safety car on his in-lap quicker than his rivals and so had lost more time than them on his way into the pits. Making a split-second decision to bring Hamilton in, Mercedes had not factored those lost seconds into the equation. The safety car was withdrawn on lap 70, but with overtaking at Monaco notoriously difficult, Rosberg was able to win unchallenged leaving Hamilton, stuck behind Vettel, a frustrated third.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff admitted after the race: ‘We got our numbers wrong. We thought we had the gap for Lewis to take fresh tyres and come back out in the lead behind the safety car, ahead of Nico and covering any risk of another competitor taking fresh tyres. But the calculation was incorrect.’
In the past, Hamilton had not always dealt well with adversity but on this occasion he was surprisingly philosophical. It was probably because he knew he was driving for the best team and that they would do their utmost to make up for their uncharacteristic slip. He was to be proved right.