What caused Bottas to gift Hamilton his F1 history moment

He'd done everything right. He'd taken a storming pole position against a resurgent Red Bull threat and in the process seen off his illustrious team-mate. He'd done enough at the start to stay in the fight at the first corner, which became an off-track shoving match he won, per the words of his team boss, in the style of a "rally driver". He'd prevailed there with a muscling move into the second turn and then led for 12 tours, staying out of DRS threat against the other Mercedes.

And then it all went wrong for Valtteri Bottas. At the start of the Eifel Grand Prix's 13th lap, the Finn locked up his right-front tyre heavily into the Nurburgring's first corner and slid off the road - his soft rubber ruined.

Lewis Hamilton wasted no time - he nipped around the outside of his team-mate at the long Turn 2 left-hander, and was through into a lead he would never lose. The chequered flag brought Hamilton's 91st Formula 1 victory, bringing him level with the legendary Michael Schumacher in the all-time win stakes.

Things would get worse for Bottas, but that lock-up was a gift to Hamilton that brought history.

And it was, said Bottas, all down to a smattering of precipitation. Nothing like the constant fine rain that had fallen from the low cloud and cancelled the practice proceedings last Friday, but enough to force another costly mistake in a title battle where, considering his opposition, only perfection will really do.

"It was mainly the drizzle," explained Bottas. "[I] really had less grip under braking and it was a really sudden lock-up. And of course, being the first car out there who is approaching that corner, for sure I'm sure Lewis saw pretty quickly that I locked up, so I'm sure he had a chance to react. It was a mistake, but also tricky conditions."

Bottas managed to hang on to second place ahead of the ever-present Max Verstappen, who joined the Black Arrows in being the only drivers able to lap in the 1m32s during the laps before Hamilton took the lead. Mercedes called Bottas in at the end of lap 13 and switched him onto the medium tyres. That was always the plan given the durability of the C3 rubber Pirelli had brought to Germany, where the cold conditions meant it was easier for the drivers to keep the tyres alive, assuming they could also maintain the required temperature.

But Bottas emerged behind Renault's Daniel Ricciardo, who by this time was already nearly a whole pitstop adrift of first place after he'd spent the opening eight laps stuck behind Charles Leclerc's Ferrari. Bottas nipped by the Australian after nearly two tours running in his wake, but then the second of three strikes of misfortune arrived.

Mercedes issued a string of instructions in an attempt to recertify the problem, but it was no good. On lap 18, having fallen to eighth, Bottas coasted into the pits and retired

Kimi Raikkonen marked the race where he became F1's most experienced driver with a clumsy mistake a few moments after Bottas's off, which sent him sideways into George Russell as they both chased Sebastian Vettel - who was trying to recover from yet another unforced spin - into the first corner. The Alfa Romeo driver had to catch a snap of oversteer as he ran through the tight right-hander, and in doing so speared left into Russell. This sent the Williams onto its left-side wheels, punctured its left-rear and appeared to damage its suspension. Russell drove on, but the damage soon forced him to stop on the run to the Turn 7, which triggered a virtual safety car.

This gave Hamilton and Verstappen the chance to come in and gain further time on Bottas. The VSC ended just as Hamilton had reached Turn 2 on lap 17 following his pitstop, and at the end of that lap Bottas was 18.8 seconds behind Verstappen having been ahead when he stopped. Then it got much worse.

Bottas reported he had "no power" and quickly started losing ground. He dropped behind the long-first-stinting Lando Norris and Sergio Perez, his MGU-H - part of an all-new Mercedes power unit fitted for this event - containing the suspected problem.

Mercedes issued a string of instructions in an attempt to recertify the problem, but it was no good. On lap 18, having fallen to eighth, Bottas coasted into the pits and retired.

"It looks like [the problem] was around the MGU-H," Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said after the race, "but we haven't found the root cause yet. We retired the car also - not only because he wouldn't have scored points, but also because we didn't want to damage the power unit. I said sorry for the failure."

Wolff reckoned Bottas still had a chance of being in victory contention on what would have been a two-stop strategy (assuming the race had played out without any further interruptions, which it did not), but the damage, quite clearly, was already done.

Hamilton had rather unleashed things when his team-mate had gifted him the lead. The pair had lapped at an average of 1m32.063s (for Hamilton) and 1m32.100s respectively before Bottas's off, and a string of three subsequent 1m31.7s meant he was 4.348s ahead of Verstappen when they both pitted. A 4.2s stop handed the Red Bull back two seconds of this advantage, as Mercedes was forced to wait for Verstappen to come by before releasing Hamilton, and for a short while on his new mediums the world champion was concerned.

"The tyres were not working for me, particularly when I came out after the pitstops," he said. "I had a good gap to you [Max] but then you nearly had me [after the VSC pitstops]. You were catching me and I was struggling so much on the newer tyres."

The result was a 3.713s slower out-lap, two seconds of which were down to the long stop, as Hamilton really wrestled his car to bring the tyres up to temperature. But he then got into the 1m30s on the next tour - two laps before Verstappen could follow him. From there, he reasserted his lead, and extended it to a maximum of 12.224s. Between the end of laps 17 and 45, Hamilton edged clear to the tune of 0.378s per lap.

By this stage in proceedings, the fight for the lead was seemingly over, and attention turned to the final spot on the podium. Given the Red Bull RB16's pace, this probably should have gone to Alex Albon, but he was already out after debris had punctured his radiator and caused his team to retire the car. In any case, he'd already spoiled his afternoon by locking up heavily fighting Ricciardo on the first lap and then taking off Daniil Kvyat's front wing as they scrapped over 10th exiting the final chicane at the one quarter mark.

These developments, combining massively with Bottas's mechanical drama, had given Ricciardo a golden chance to take his first podium with Renault.

He had rejoined from his VSC stop - which didn't work out quite as well for the Australian as it did for Hamilton and Verstappen given the neutralisation ended while he was still in the pitlane - in ninth. From there, he had 44 laps to go to the flag, but without the pace advantage of the leaders.

His time stuck behind Leclerc had cost him 19.392s to Hamilton, but in any case the top three (while they were a trio) were in another class of lap time - as Ricciardo could not run in the 1m32s/1m31s they had been setting across the race's first quarter.

Ricciardo worked his way back up to third as Norris and Perez stopped on laps 29 and 28 respectively, with the former then falling out of contention - and eventually out of the race - as a suspected ignition problem kept sending the Renault engine in his McLaren into a safety mode. The problem caused his retirement just before three quarters distance and made things a touch easier for Ricciardo's silverware quest.

By stopping so far from the finish, Ricciardo was vulnerable to a late attack, which looked to be coming from Perez. The Racing Point driver had risen from ninth on the grid to sixth behind Norris, helped by muscling past Esteban Ocon on lap one, with them both gaining when Red Bull pitted Albon on lap seven - for safety reasons following his opening tour lock-up.

In the end, after Ricciardo and Renault had agreed it was not worth sacrificing track position and preferring to gamble on being able to rebuff a passing attempt, the circumstances played out in their favour

After his stop on lap 28, ending a long first stint on the softs to take the mediums, Perez passed Norris who was by then battling that reliability drama. Perez was then held up passing Leclerc - as the Ferrari driver had cycled back towards the higher points places following his early first stop - and when he eventually got by, he faced a 16.619s deficit to Ricciardo. Over the next 11 laps, Perez reduced this to 10.073s, which put the Renault driver and his team in a bind.

"It was going to be tight," Ricciardo said of the threat of losing third to a late Perez attack. "I was trying to manage the tyres a little bit to have something at the end, but he started to catch me - on some laps a second a lap. So, I was then trying to pick up the pace and not to be vulnerable too early. There was a discussion: 'do we pit or not?'"

In the end, after Ricciardo and Renault had agreed it was not worth sacrificing track position and preferring to gamble on being able to rebuff a passing attempt, the circumstances played out in their favour.

Norris came to a halt at Turn 6, with his right-hand sidepod smoking, before climbing from his MCL35 and taking a Fernando Alonso-style sit down at the nearby marshals' post. At first glance this didn't appear to be too much of a problem, but by stopping beyond the gravel trap of the downhill right that precedes the Nurburgring's Turn 7 hairpin, Norris's car was still in the firing line, and its condition also gave the FIA a problem. To solve this, it turned to the safety car.

"Lando's car had some smoke and fire, so that was one point [why its recovery couldn't take place under another VSC]," said F1 race director Michael Masi. "The other was at first glance we weren't confident that the car could actually be recovered into the opening that was there, due to its tightness.

"So, rather than having to react along the way, it was determined to go for a safety car - that way it could be dealt with all at once immediately. It was the safest action in that circumstance."

The safety car remained out for five laps after Norris had stopped, a long period that had the two leaders worried - and which Masi explained was simply down to all the lapped runners (10 by this point) having to pass by and close back up, per F1's sporting rules.

But Hamilton and Verstappen were alarmed. Thanks to the cold conditions at the Nurburgring all weekend, they were worried that the lengthy safety car period would leave them vulnerable at the restart. They had both pitted as soon as they could once the safety car was called into action and gone back onto the softs.

Ricciardo did likewise, and while Racing Point initially left Perez out, which briefly put him ahead on the road under the race suspension, it then called him in to take the red-walled rubber too.

The safety car finally peeled off to leave an 11-lap sprint to the end, with Hamilton nailing the restart despite his tyre temperature concerns. In fact, he did it so well that he had a 1.063s lead by the start of the first full tour of resumed green flag running on lap 50, and Verstappen came under attack from Ricciardo.

But the Red Bull driver was able to shrug off his former team-mate as they exited the first turn, while Ricciardo in turn stayed in front of Perez, despite the Racing Point driver having a look to the inside of Turn 4, in the shadow of the giant Mercedes grandstand, on the same first lap after the restart. He held on to take his first podium since winning in Monaco in 2018 by 1.457s over Perez.

Hamilton never looked threatened to the end, coming home 4.470s ahead after lapping at an average of 0.31s per lap faster than Verstappen over the final tours. It wasn't quite the perfect Sunday for the Briton, though, as Verstappen stole the bonus point for fastest lap right at the last.

All that was left was for Hamilton to return for his history moment. After he had climbed from his car and conducted the parc ferme-side television interviews, he was given one of Schumacher's Mercedes helmets, presented by his son Mick. It was a touching moment, with Hamilton taking the glowing red helmet with him onto the podium.

"To have his family honour me, I'm just incredibly humbled" Lewis Hamilton

"I grew up watching Michael win all of those grands prix and I couldn't have fathomed equalling him," Hamilton told the post-race press conference. "I think getting to Formula 1 was the first step of the dream and obviously emulating Ayrton [Senna, his childhood hero's pole record in Canada 2017]. But Michael was just so far ahead. It's beyond my wildest dreams to think that I'm here having equalled him.

"To have his family honour me, I'm just incredibly humbled. You know, his son is such a great bright talent and just a really genuine human being, so Michael's obviously raised a great man in him and I look forward to seeing how his career will look moving forwards.

"Now I have two special helmets from Michael [the other he had received when Schumacher retired from F1 for the second time, in Abu Dhabi in 2012, after Mercedes had confirmed Hamilton as his replacement for the following year] in my small living room!"

The date 11 October 2020 will always belong to Hamilton's record-equalling moment. But it seems ever more certain that another date in the coming weeks will belong to the moment he matches Schumacher's haul of seven world titles.

Hamilton's victory, allied with Bottas scoring nothing, puts him onto 230 points - 69 ahead of his team-mate. Wisely, Hamilton is taking nothing for granted in these most turbulent of times. As he pointed out: "So many different things in this crazy pandemic can still happen, so I've got to focus on staying healthy."

But the gap is now enormous. As Bottas acknowledges, it seems it will indeed take a major intervention to deny Hamilton the championship. "The engine thing, I couldn't believe it," said Bottas. "Now I understand the gap to Lewis is pretty big in terms of points. Definitely would need a miracle."