Would Hamilton have won at Imola without VSC fortune?

The Mercedes W11 may well go down as one of the best Formula 1 cars that has ever been produced. But it is certainly not designed to run with a massive bit of Ferrari bodywork jammed into the aerodynamic structures of its slippery belly.

The chunk of Ferrari front wing endplate was a major factor in Valtteri Bottas's defeat against Lewis Hamilton in last weekend's Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. But it was not the only factor that cost the Finn at Imola.

It had all been going so well for one lap and six corners. Hamilton had fallen to third off the line with "poor grip" heading out of his second-place grid spot, although he also hinted at the start process getting away from him somehow, saying cryptically afterwards: "I could have done a different job." The world champion's slow getaway let Max Verstappen follow Bottas into the Tamburello chicane, with Hamilton even briefly coming under pressure from Daniel Ricciardo after edging out Pierre Gasly.

Bottas surged clear, with a 1.452-second gap over Verstappen as he started the second tour of 63. But as he entered that lap's second sector, disaster struck.

Just before the Mercedes driver rounded the Tosa hairpin, his team had warned him to watch for gravel on the road following Sebastian Vettel and Kevin Magnussen's lap one shunt (later judged by the stewards to have been "broadly similar to other first lap incidents", and so they took no action to ensure consistency). But the incident had actually left something rather more dangerous on the road - part of Vettel's front wing, "on the racing line", according to Bottas.

"I didn't have enough time to react," he explained later. "I saw a big piece of carbon, so I decided the only chance [for] what I had time to do, was aim at least how to hit it. I decided to go straight over it instead of hitting one of the tyres and possibly getting a puncture. But, unluckily, it got stuck under the floor and apparently it was like 50 points of downforce [down] which, in lap time, is quite a big chunk."

Autosport estimates that such a downforce loss could have cost Bottas around 0.7-0.8s a lap for the rest of the race. A major impact on Bottas's defeat indeed.

But, visually at least, it did not seem to hinder him in the early phase of the race. For the next 12 laps, he gradually increased his pace down the 1m19s bracket - eking his lead out to 2.019s by the end of lap 15. Here, Bottas reached the 1m18s, setting a string of then fastest laps as he raced towards the end of his first stint on the medium tyres.

Red Bull opted to bring Verstappen in on lap 18, when he had been 2.507s behind, with Mercedes guarding against the undercut one tour later when the leader also came in to exchange his yellow-walled tyres for the hards. This brought in the next factor in Bottas's defeat - Hamilton's alternative strategy.

As soon as he was in clean air, Hamilton unleashed pace he had been holding in reserve behind Verstappen

Mercedes' aim as a squad, like the rest of the teams, is to finish 1-2 in every race. It's really not too fussed which driver finishes ahead, just as long as they are successful enough over the course of a campaign to clinch the points required to celebrate a constructors' title. Such revelries are commonplace for Mercedes these days, with the seventh successive title it sealed at the race's end enough to overhaul Ferrari's six consecutive championship wins between 1999 and 2004 in the record books.

The team was therefore focused on getting Hamilton back ahead of Verstappen. It quickly decided to extend his opening stint - with the medium tyres holding up much better, as the other seven soft-shod Q3 runners found to their cost, all stopping at least seven laps before Pirelli's earliest estimation (lap 24) of when they would need to come in to complete a one-stopper. Significant graining on the softs had been seen in the limited practice running.

As soon as he was in clean air, Hamilton unleashed pace he had been holding in reserve behind Verstappen, explaining "I backed off and just tried to keep within distance" as trying to close the rest of the gap, just in DRS range, was "killing" his tyres.

His 1m18.477s on lap 19 was the quickest of the race so far, and he didn't dip out of the 1m18s bracket until he stopped on lap 30 - even reaching the 1m17s on two occasions. Hamilton's average lap time between assuming the lead and his first pitstop was 1m18.280s. Behind, Bottas was averaging 1m18.690s and Verstappen 1m18.771s. This was despite Hamilton having to carve his way through a gaggle of five backmarkers.

Here, though, fate intervened again - and decisively for Hamilton.

On lap 28, Esteban Ocon's Renault ground to a halt on the climb out of the second part of Acque Minerali, and a lap later the virtual safety car was activated so the marshals could "recover the car and push it back into the opening quickly and safely", according to F1 race director Michael Masi.

The VSC was activated when Hamilton was entering the final corner, and a few moments later he pitted - gaining significantly as Bottas and Verstappen were forced to obey their lap time minimum-speed deltas. The result, when back to full speed at the end of lap 31 (the VSC ended with Hamilton exiting the pits), was a 3.713s lead.

He was never headed thereafter, despite rather a lot happening in the rest of the race. We must therefore consider whether Hamilton had a large enough advantage to come in and switch to the hards and keep the lead, even in normal green flag conditions.

And the answer is, at that precise stage: no.

The fastest total time any single car set through Imola's long pitlane in the race was Verstappen's, when he travelled the distance in 29.427s during his sole race visit to the pits. Hamilton's lead at the start of the lap the VSC was activated was 28.190s. And so, assuming Mercedes would've been able to match Red Bull's turnaround time (the team's actual quickest total pitlane time was 29.600s, with Bottas), he would have come out 1.237s behind Bottas.

But, and again with the caveat that this would have required Mercedes turning him around faster than at any stage it did in reality, he would have just edged Verstappen by 0.353s (given his lead over the Dutchman on lap 30 was 29.780s).

However, even if Hamilton had come out behind the Red Bull, he almost certainly still would have won F1's first Emilia Romagna race - assuming events played out exactly as they did.

With Hamilton gone - romping to a maximum lead of 13.935s after his VSC stop - the intrigue among the leaders concerned whether Bottas, who after he had stopped was informed of the damage to his car, could keep Verstappen at bay.

"It was a bit unpredictable, so sometimes I would lock the wheels and sometimes it would stop pretty quickly. It was not really consistent, the downforce I had in the car" Valtteri Bottas

Mercedes had attempted to remove the errant piece of Ferrari bodywork at Bottas's first stop, but could not spend too long trying to extricate the piece as it had to ensure he maintained track position. And so, Bottas went into the race's middle phase driving a badly hobbled car.

"How it affected me," he explained, "I would say mainly in high-speed corners. I could feel that the car was sliding a bit and in some braking [points] it was a bit unpredictable, so sometimes I would lock the wheels and sometimes it would stop pretty quickly. It was not really consistent, the downforce I had in the car. It made it really tricky and I could see I just didn't quite have the pace and Max was putting [on] a lot of pressure."

The result of this hounding was Bottas eventually making two small trips into the Rivazza gravel. After the first, on lap 36, he managed to stay in front, but the second on lap 42 gave Verstappen a much better chance, as Bottas went further off the road and lost more momentum. With DRS, Verstappen pounced - surging ahead on the outside approach to Tamburello, after closing in across the long run from the second Rivazza left down to the first part of Imola's first real cornering sequence.

For the next eight laps, Hamilton and Verstappen traded a few tenths here and there as they generally lapped in the 1m17s, with the former's lead holding firm around the 13s mark. But this phase ended with fortune again intervening in proceedings.

As Verstappen raced towards the Villeneuve chicane on lap 51, his race engineer, the delightfully deadpan Gianpiero Lambiase, was informing him that Mercedes had told Hamilton to push to gain two seconds to create a buffer sufficient to see him through any potential safety car. The message tailed off with Lambiase noting "...you're off", which was quite an understatement.

While his engineer was diligently telling him of an unfolding race situation, Verstappen's car had been pitched into a dramatic spin when his right-rear tyre blew spectacularly. The RB16 was sent spinning into the gravel, fortunately stopping before it swung backwards onto the circuit. The safety car was called into action.

Mercedes, with 30.094s in hand over Sergio Perez for Bottas (it was 54.157s for Hamilton), did not hesitate to bring its second car in - taking the time to finally remove the piece of Ferrari. But Hamilton was just passing the pitlane entry when the safety car was announced and so was forced to tour slowly around, being picked up by the safety car, with Peter Bonnington concerned he was going too quickly compared to the required time delta.

"I think [he was] just overly cautious," Hamilton said of this radio exchange. "For whatever reason, the safety car was out, and the delta wasn't an issue at that point. We were quite down."

But Hamilton was very nearly down a position as well. Mercedes had decided to definitely get rid of his hards after spotting a small vibration issue on his rear tyres, and while he was exiting the pitlane, Bottas was bearing down the pitstraight, even at the reduced speed. Hamilton stayed in front, with the lapped Vettel in between the two Black Arrows, but it was a near-run thing.

The safety car period was extended significantly when George Russell threw away a fantastic weekend performance when he speared into the wall ahead of the first right of Acque Minerali. The Briton said he was caught out with "the tyres too cold" and he was left painfully contemplating his error in the glare of the TV spotlight.

When all the debris had finally been cleared up, with Pirelli suspecting a piece of such detritus was behind Verstappen's tyre failure - it had, after all, happened on the run down to the Villeneuve chicane where Lance Stroll's wing fell apart on lap one after his tag against Ocon's right-rear - racing resumed with a six-lap dash to the flag.

Hamilton and Bottas were unleashed, with the latter's floor damage meaning it still wasn't the fairest fight. But it was a 'battle' Hamilton comprehensively won - producing yet another flurry of fastest laps (eventually bringing it down to 1m15.484s on the final lap) to take victory by 5.783s. On the short third stint, he gapped Bottas by 0.859s a lap.

"It was an exhausting race, the speed we were having to go," said the victor. "It was incredibly intense, very hard, physically quite draining as well, and mentally - mainly because it's a very fast circuit, very bumpy."

Behind the Mercedes cars came Renault's Ricciardo, who clinched his second third place finish in three races - the same number of rostrum visits he had in his final year at Red Bull in 2018 (although they were both wins).

It didn't look as if that was on, though, before the safety car appeared. After his brief look at Hamilton into Tamburello on the first lap, Ricciardo had quickly fallen away from the leaders. By the time he stopped on lap 14, he was 19.011s behind first place, having given away more than a second per lap compared to even the hamstrung Bottas.

"I knew hanging on with the hard on the restart was going to be tricky but I was more than happy to fight for it at the end" Daniel Ricciardo

From there he'd headed the soft-starting drivers for the rest of the race, getting stuck behind Magnussen's Haas for 12 laps after rejoining on the hards. So, when Verstappen's tyre let go, it was Perez in the pound seat to capitalise.

Starting 11th, and free to take the much faster medium tyres, he'd driven impressively to rise up the order. When he stopped on lap 27, his average since the start was a 1m20.247s, compared to 1m19.143s for the race winner, but Ricciardo's a 1m20.443s. That 0.196s pace difference meant he had just enough margin to overcut Ricciardo, now finally ahead of Magnussen, by 1.783s at the end of his out-lap.

But Racing Point was "concerned it would be difficult to switch on the hard tyres after the safety car", according to team boss Otmar Szafnauer. So, it brought Perez in behind Bottas when the suspension was called. This dropped him to sixth at the late-race restart, albeit armed with new soft rubber - and Ricciardo, Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon ahead on 43, 44 and 43-lap old hards respectively.

Yet it wasn't Perez who made the most impressive restart. That went to Daniil Kvyat, who rescued a fine result for AlphaTauri after Gasly's radiator-weld-failure-induced retirement from fifth on lap eight. Kvyat, on new softs, slipstreamed bravely past Perez and Albon at the restart, then barged by Leclerc on the run up to Piratella.

But he just didn't have enough time to bring his advantage to bear on Ricciardo, who had worked hard with his engineer to ensure he had his old hards just warm enough to scamper clear and hang on over the final laps.

"Perez pitting, which, obviously, I was smiling about because I was [thinking], 'Well, that's given me third on track'," said Ricciardo. "I knew hanging on with the hard on the restart was going to be tricky but I was more than happy to fight for it at the end. Both myself and the team were very willing to keep me out on track. We held on."

Mercedes' result gave it 44 points on the day (including Hamilton's fastest lap bonus), enough to seal the constructors' trophy that has been at home in Brackley since 2014. But while the team might not care which of its drivers finish in front, that removes the joy of human fluctuation in favour of cold logic. Classic F1.

When considering all that Hamilton and Bottas faced at Imola last Sunday, we can assume that even without the slice of VSC luck that the former would have triumphed.

Had he beaten Verstappen out of the pits after a green flag pitstop, Hamilton would have been the one pressuring Bottas into his two Rivazza offs. Had he come out behind the Red Bull its tyre would still have failed and, given his pace advantage even when Bottas's bonus aero part had been removed, it's fair to assume he would have found a way by. It's fair because this is all hypothetical - whimsical in the face of F1 facts.

Assumptions aside, Hamilton did triumph - for the 93rd time. He now has an 85-point buffer - and stands ever closer to the brink of yet more history. Equalling Michael Schumacher's record seven title haul could come as soon as the next race in Turkey.

"I definitely think these last couple of years I've been able to really step it up," Hamilton concluded. "Quite big strides, I would say, in positive areas and I think that's come with age.

"I'm getting older now and whilst not letting my physical side drop off, I've been getting stronger, which feels good. I think this year has been feeling that. Definitely really proud of this year's performances but I couldn't have done it without great people working behind me."