Luck for Hamilton: 'Error was still very much in his head'

Victory in Imola may have been Max Verstappen's, but the moral winner may have been Lewis Hamilton. Indeed, the Brit seemed to take a big hit from his mistake, but was saved by the red flag.

In his hunt for Verstappen, Hamilton made a huge mistake. The Briton slid into the wall, and in the gravel, with his front wing hanging on the ground and a lap behind, his race seemed over, but Hamilton was lucky. A red flag was raised by a crash involving George Russell and Valtteri Bottas, bringing the field back together and giving Lewis back his lap deficit.

Luck for Hamilton

''Lewis got lucky with a safety car here late last year and now once again the red flag to clear up the mess from Bottas and Russell played into his hands by allowing damage to be repaired, some fresh tyres (like everyone else) and to unlap himself (along with the other lapped runners). 'The rules allow for lapped cars to unlap themselves, by one lap and return to the back of the field, under a safety car and red flags so that on the restart they are not in the mix with the leaders thereby denying us of say a great duel in the closing stages of the race,'' explained Martin Brundle in his column for Sky Sports. According to Brundle there is no need to start working on conspiracy theories just yet.

''What goes around comes around for teams and drivers in this respect, sometimes it will help you, sometimes it will hurt you. It seems unfair in some respects, but we have seen the rule really energise races and bring drivers back into play. Lewis didn't waste his gift-wrapped opportunity as he sliced through to second place and fastest lap. When I interviewed him post-race it was clear that the error when passing Russell played heavily on his mind'', concluded the former F1 driver.