Lewis Hamilton says the sight of Sebastian Vettel emerging ahead of him from the pit-lane left him in “disbelief” during the Australian GP.
The Briton had been leading comfortably from the start in his Mercedes, though Ferrari had been keeping him honest with only a three-second gap back to Kimi Raikkonen during the first stint.
Vettel posed even less of a threat before everything changed in the pit-stop phase as a Virtual Safety Car, caused by the stricken Haas of Romain Grosjean, allowed him to pit and change tyres while those behind, who had stopped earlier, were travelling at a reduced speed.
“I really still don’t now understand what’s happened,” Hamilton said afterwards. “I did everything I believe that I was supposed to do.
“The [Virtual] Safety Car came out and then I was coming down the straight and all of a sudden, really last minute I was told the Ferrari was coming out. I didn’t know the Ferrari was in.
“I think [I felt] just disbelief was really from that moment until the end, just disbelief.”
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Keen to make up for the perceived injustice, the world champion tried to attack but ultimately, two small mistakes dropped Lewis back before calling off the chase in the closing laps.
“I was risking it, but I could have lost all the points,” he claimed. “Eventually I think I made the sensible choice.
“It’s a long, long way in the championship and it’s not all won in one race. That’s what I’m trying to focus on.”
Talking to Sky Sports in the paddock, Mercedes motorsport boss offered some kind of explanation as to how the team got it wrong.
“I think we have a software issue with the VSC data, a situation that we haven’t had yet with a special constellation of cars on track, one going in high speeds and one in slow speeds.
“The gap that we needed was wrongly calculated by the systems.”
