Palmer analyses: 'You could hear the fear in Hamilton'

The race in Saudi Arabia provided a lot of food for thought; every analyst in the Formula 1 circus has been doing so since then. Jolyon Palmer, a former Formula 1 driver himself, reckons he saw a Lewis Hamilton who feared for his title aspirations.

Chaos

All the chaos and controversy was initiated by the red flag after Mick Schumacher's accident. In his regular column on the official Formula 1 site "Had the race not been red flagged for barrier inspections after Mick Schumacher’s crash, we almost certainly wouldn’t have had the drama that ensued, because Hamilton was in a brilliant position to win the Grand Prix, having pitted and emerged right behind Verstappen, who still had to stop."

So it all turned out differently. The red flag allowed Max Verstappen to change his tyres and keep the lead. "On the team radio you could hear the angst from Hamilton as he realised what had happened. At this point it looked as though a clear victory shot had just been taken away from him as he now had his nemesis ahead. Credit to Hamilton, he kept calm and raced on – surely his years of experience helped and he cleared his head and made the most of the remaining moments in the race."

Hard to argue with

Palmer did regret that in the end two penalties handed to Verstappen had to be involved to make the race go the way it did. "It was a shame that this race was decided by the stewards and not a fantastic on-track battle, but it’s hard to argue with the result given everything that happened on Sunday."