Chapter 180: Blue Flags
The moment Hamilton exited the pit lane, he couldn't help complaining over the radio.
"These tires are terrible, man."
"All remaining sets were already worn. Just manage them carefully when you're in traffic," the Mercedes team replied, somewhat evasively.
"Where's Wu Shi? Is he ahead of me or behind? Who's in front right now?" Hamilton asked.
"Wu Shi also pitted. He's behind you, six-point-three seconds back. Vettel is still leading — you're eleven seconds behind him. Rosberg is ahead of you by seven-point-five."
Hamilton didn't sound satisfied. His tone sharpened.
"What tires did Wu Shi take? Why didn't you tell me?"
"He switched to medium tires. He saved a fresh set in practice."
"So they're brand new?"
"Yes."
"What lap is this?"
"You pitted on lap thirty-nine. You're starting lap forty now."
"Sixteen laps left…"
"Yes."
After the exchange, Hamilton already sensed trouble.
Vettel had switched to new tires on lap thirty-seven. The tire age difference between them was only two laps, yet the gap was over ten seconds.
Catching Vettel in the remaining distance was nothing but a fantasy.
Ferrari's two-stop strategy, prepared from the very beginning, had now been fully revealed.
Even if tire degradation increased late in the race, skipping one pit stop meant a free twenty-plus seconds — more than enough to turn a lead into victory.
Unless something extraordinary happened, no one on track could threaten Vettel's position.
So Hamilton's real anxiety came from behind him.
He knew exactly how big the performance gap was between medium and hard tires.
---
"How much faster am I than Rosberg?"
At Turn 13, Hamilton asked again, heavy breathing mixed with static in his earpiece.
"You're quicker. His tires are degrading badly," the team replied, without giving numbers.
Hamilton understood the implication.
Mercedes wanted Rosberg to pit again, give up track position, and avoid any on-track fight.
But was that really what Hamilton wanted?
"No," Hamilton said firmly. "After I catch him, we swap. Wu Shi is still behind us."
"Yes, we know. But for Nico, whether he pits or not, he'll likely finish fourth anyway," the team replied bluntly.
If he was going to be fourth regardless, then why should Rosberg sacrifice himself?
And if team orders were always absolute, Hamilton himself wouldn't have ignored so many in the past.
---
As the race entered lap forty-one, Hamilton had closed to 6.78 seconds behind Rosberg, gaining nearly a second in a single lap.
At the same time, Jonathan spoke to Wu Shi.
"The gap to Hamilton is shrinking. Last lap you were six-tenths faster than him, one-point-three-eight faster than Rosberg, and eight-tenths faster than Vettel."
"Everyone ahead of me is on hard tires, right?" Wu Shi asked.
His breathing was heavy. The extreme heat and more than forty laps of high-intensity driving were taking their toll. For a moment, his vision even blurred — a warning sign of heat stress.
His physical conditioning was still a weakness. Lower-tier formulas simply didn't demand this level of endurance.
"Yes. All on hard tires. You have the speed and the freshest set, but protect your tires when passing traffic," Jonathan replied.
"Copy."
---
Lap forty-two.
The gaps among the top four followed the same pattern.
Now that Hamilton's hard tires were fully in the working window, he cut another 1.2 seconds from Rosberg's advantage — and that also meant he was closing on Vettel.
Jonathan had expected to see Hamilton and Rosberg fighting, giving Wu Shi a chance to close in.
But Mercedes acted decisively.
"There are lapped cars ahead. BOX, BOX," the team ordered Rosberg.
Rosberg had already sensed this coming — and felt deeply dissatisfied.
He had been given hard tires specifically for a two-stop strategy. Now they were abandoning it entirely, making his earlier stints meaningless.
If it were an order to let someone pass, he might have found a way to delay it.
But a pit call was not something a driver could refuse.
After Turn 14, the number 6 Mercedes peeled off into the pit lane, where the team fitted him with their final unused set of medium tires.
"This is unbelievable! Rosberg is being completely sacrificed by Mercedes!" Brother Bing laughed loudly.
"What on earth is Mercedes' strategy team doing?!" Brother Fei shook his head.
---
In truth, it all stemmed from Mercedes misjudging the hard tire's performance.
After the lap-four safety car, they believed they could split strategies:
Hamilton on three stops, Rosberg on two.
But Rosberg had been delayed by pit-lane traffic, dropped into the midfield, and got stuck behind cars on fresh mediums.
His hard tires made overtaking extremely difficult, which destroyed his stint.
That convinced Mercedes to stubbornly cling to the two-stop plan — at least until he met Vettel on track and lost badly.
Now, the logic was simple.
Whether Rosberg pitted or not, fourth place was inevitable. Better to pit, clear the way for Hamilton, and avoid any risk of contact between teammates.
Hamilton noticed that the familiar silver car was gone at the hairpin.
He knew immediately — Rosberg had pitted.
What lay ahead now was traffic.
---
At the same time, Button reported over the radio:
"My Honda has no power… no power."
"Please bring the car back safely," McLaren replied.
Both McLarens were now out of the race. Honda's reliability issues were once again fully exposed.
---
As Vettel crossed the line, lap forty-three began.
Then Mercedes told Hamilton:
"Last lap was one-forty-five-point-one. Gap to Vettel is now twelve seconds. You need to clear traffic as quickly as possible."
"Don't talk to me while I'm exiting corners! I'm nearly losing the rear!" Hamilton snapped.
His emotions were clearly fraying.
Jonathan then updated Wu Shi:
"Vettel's last lap was one-forty-three-point-six. You need to pass traffic quickly, but watch your tires. Vettel is also in traffic."
"Understood."
Wu Shi's condition wasn't much better than Hamilton's.
---
Blue flags waved along the circuit, warning lapped cars to move aside.
Most drivers complied immediately.
For Wu Shi, it was simple: find the gap, pass decisively, and minimize tire loss.
Lap forty-four became another lap dominated by traffic management.
Up front, Vettel was the most relaxed of all — even singing over the radio:
"Blue flag~ blue flag~"
That lap, Hamilton gained about a second on Vettel, but the gap still hovered around twelve seconds.
Wu Shi, however, made no further gains. His gap to Hamilton remained just under six seconds.
"The traffic ahead is thinning. You are five-point-eight-six behind Hamilton, seventeen-point-nine behind Vettel. Twelve laps to go," Jonathan reported.
The real chase… was about to begin.