“Didn’t realise I had Alonso behind me”: Hamilton’s costly turn 14 error in Las Vegas

Sullen self-criticism has become a trademark of Lewis Hamilton’s first season at Ferrari, and last weekend’s race was no exception.

“No matter how much I try it keeps getting worse,” reflected Hamilton after taking the chequered flag 10th last weekend (before McLaren’s disqualification promoted him to eighth).

Hamilton started the race on the hard tyre compound and quickly jumped up to 12th place due to various incidents at the first corner. However he made little impression on Esteban Ocon ahead of him who was running on the medium rubber.

It was only after Ocon lost DRS from Fernando Alonso in front of him that Hamilton was able to pass the Haas:

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Now Hamilton began closing on Hulkenberg. However he remained unhappy with his car’s braking performance, particularly into turn 14 at the end of the long straight down the Strip.

Ferrari appeared to try to prompt Sauber into pitting Hulkenberg early by giving Hamilton an early call to pit which they cancelled at the last moment:

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The next time around Ferrari pitted Hamilton for real. This proved the pivotal moment in his race as Ferrari hoped to ‘undercut’ Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber. He and Hamilton were the leading drivers who started the race on the hard rubber:

Hamilton emerged into clear air. He had successfully ‘overcut’ Alonso, emerging over two seconds ahead of the Aston Martin.

But he ended the lap fighting wheel-to-wheel with Alonso. What had gone wrong?

Alonso’s pursuit of Hamilton was being shown on the world feed at the time. But as the cameras followed Alonso and Bearman around turn 14 they did not show Hamilton making another mistake at turn 14, running deep into the corner. Alonso’s onboard camera was facing backwards towards Bearman at this point.

Hamilton’s onboard revealed he skated wide at this crucial moment on his out-lap, losing a significant amount of time and allowing Alonso to attack him into turn 17. Meanwhile Hulkenberg pitted and, thanks to Hamilton’s mistake, easily came out ahead of the Ferrari.

Afterwards Hamilton told his race engineer Ricardo Adami he had been unaware Alonso was behind him. However the pair weren’t particularly close until Hamilton made his mistake – Alonso was not using DRS on the Strip when he caught the Ferrari.

Ferrari had told Hamilton his priority on rejoining the track was not pushing as hard as possible to ensure he undercut Hulkenberg but to bring his tyres up to racing temperatures carefully to maximise their life over the rest of the stint. A further sign they were not concerned by the threat from Alonso at the point they brought him in:

Although Hamilton managed to see off the attack from Alonso, his hopes of undercutting Hulkenberg were over. He has frequently complained about being unhappy with his car’s rear balance this year and on this occasion it caught him out at an especially costly moment.

Hamilton’s pace on medium tyres at the end of the race was poor and he was unable to gain any further ground. After the race ended, Hamilton was at a loss to understand how he’d been beaten by Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who pitted during an early Virtual Safety Car period and ran almost the entire race on a set of hard tyres:

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