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Hamilton has no hard feelings over pitstop blunder
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-25 10:12 VALENCIA, Spain: Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton refused to blame McLaren for a pitstop blunder that cost him precious seconds and possibly victory in Sunday's European Grand Prix.
The 24-year-old Briton, who turned his season around with a win in Hungary last month, had started on pole position but lost precious seconds at a second pitstop that caught his mechanics by surprise. He finished 2.3 seconds behind Brazilian race winner Rubens Barrichello. "We win and we lose together. We have had a tremendous effort to get us here, so we cannot at all take second place for granted," said Hamilton. "We're disappointed that we didn't get the win as we have had extraordinary pace in the last three races and I still feel and believe it was a tremendous effort from everyone. These things happen, you know. "I have had so many races with this team and this has very rarely happened," he said. "This could be only the second time perhaps, so in the amount of races I have done I think they deserve a pat on the back."
"It wasn't Lewis's fault at all," he said. "Lewis was scheduled to stop on lap 37. We were obviously fighting Rubens and probably Rubens was going to beat us whatever we did. "Nonetheless, we felt we could enhance the possibility of beating Rubens by going one lap later but we didn't know if we had the fuel. "So Lewis was told early on 'we are going to stop on lap 37' but then we asked the fuel man to keep us up to date. He informed us that we could make one more lap ... and so we decided to give that a go very late," said Whitmarsh. "It was communicated to Lewis once he was committed to coming in and we had sent the crew out without the tires because we didn't know which car was going to come in first." Scoreless Webber Red Bull headed home to lick their wounds after failing to score any points but vowing to fight on in the title race. Australian Mark Webber, who finished ninth and slipped behind Barrichello to third place in the championship, admitted it was "the result I deserved".
The outcome allowed championship leader Jenson Button to move more than 20 points clear of both Webber and his Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who retired with a blown engine, his second in successive days. "A bitterly disappointing day for us all," was the verdict of team boss Christian Horner. "Now we are under pressure to respond." Webber said: "No gains for us - which is the first time in a long time. The long and short of it was that I wasn't quick enough. "It was a tough race. I've been struggling all weekend and I think I got the result I deserved, which was no points. "We were a little bit unlucky around the pit stops with Lewis (Hamilton) coming back out in front but that's the way it goes. The pit stops weren't great, as I might have been a bit long on positioning - so not the best day for us. "But, we will dust ourselves down and move on to Spa (in Belgium for the next race)."
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