How sub-par Hamilton won the Baku lottery

When you watch one of your rivals lock up and slide off the track on one lap, and the other drop out with a tyre blowout a lap later, you know fortune is on your side.

Lewis Hamilton understands what it takes to win grands prix better than any other driver on the grid, this was his 63rd grand prix victory, and after winning a race he described as "a lottery" the Mercedes driver was quick to pick holes in a performance he felt fell short of his usual high standards.

This wasn't an undeserved victory, far from it, but - as race engineer Pete Bonnington said over the radio after Hamilton took the chequered flag - lady luck was with them in Azerbaijan. But to capitalise, Hamilton had to show all of the grit and determination you'd expect of a world champion to take advantage of how the Azerbaijan GP played out.

"It's quite a humbling feeling," said Hamilton of his win. "I just kept telling myself 'keep pushing, don't give up, something might happen' and it did.

"It was a reminder to me that my whole life I've been through experiences like today where you feel you're climbing a hill and you just keep slipping down [and you say to yourself] 'I'm going to get there, I'm going to get there, I'm going to get there'.

"Of course, it was affected by other things but I don't feel completely unworthy of the win. I still drove really well through the race. But for me, if my normal level is 'eagle, birdie', today was like some pars and then a couple of bogies."

To extend Hamilton's golfing analogy, Friday practice was definitely a bogey as he struggled for pace. Significant overnight set-up changes got him back in the game and he qualified second behind Sebastian Vettel, albeit with the assistance of Kimi Raikkonen throwing away pole position by fishtailing at Turn 15 on his final qualifying lap.

The early stages of the race were all about being at even par for Hamilton. He retained second place behind Vettel and settled in for a long stint on the supersoft Pirellis all of the big three team drivers had started on, save for ultrasoft-shod Raikkonen.

"If my normal level is 'eagle, birdie', today was like some pars and then a couple of bogies" Lewis Hamilton

The first part of the battle lasted only a few seconds, as the race was neutralised by a safety car deployed because Esteban Ocon's Force India was in the Turn 3 wall after turning in on Raikkonen while the pair disputed sixth on the first lap.

Building up to the lap-six restart, Vettel opted to delay gunning the throttle until close to the safety car line (the first point at which cars can overtake, which is before the start line). This frustrated Hamilton, who pointed out the regulations do not allow the leader to get on and off the throttle and brakes repeatedly. But Vettel did exactly that and was almost half-a-second clear by the start of the lap, meaning he didn't have to work too hard to build enough of a lead to keep Hamilton out of DRS range.

Vettel soon extended his lead to around 3.5 seconds, then to a peak of 4.6s at the end of lap 15 of the 51. Hamilton subsequently picked up the pace and edged back to under 4s behind when he locked up at Turn 1 and briefly took to the escape road on lap 22, costing himself a couple of seconds. His flatspotted supersofts were finished and he had no choice but to dive into the pits.

As in golf, while this particular bogey was a driver error, it was explained by a sudden shift from a 25km/h headwind to a 15km/h tailwind that transformed the dynamics of the car while he was on the brakes.

"If I stay on this trajectory, I'm going to catch him," said Hamilton of how he felt about the phase of the race when he started to edge back towards Vettel.

"Then I had this lock-up and I was completely baffled. I hit the brakes, the car was working and then all of a sudden the wheels just locked. So the car must have unloaded, that was definitely a bit frustrating because I think I'd driven pretty well until that point and after it was a bit of a struggle."

The next battle Hamilton faced was with his own team-mate. Valtteri Bottas ran third from the start and was eight seconds behind his Mercedes team-mate when Hamilton had his moment. But with Vettel and Bottas continuing on supersofts that were in good nick and Hamilton far out of range of being an undercut threat to the Ferrari driver thanks to his off, there was no pressing need for either to pit. Doubly so given Hamilton struggled to warm up his fresh softs and wasn't exactly flying.

When Vettel eventually pitted at the end of lap 30, he was 9.3s clear of Bottas and 28.2s ahead of Hamilton. So he slotted back in on new softs between the two with a deficit of just under 12s to Bottas.

Hamilton was around 20s down, and Bottas was still lapping fast enough that he might potentially have eked out enough of a lead to pit and re-emerge ahead of his team-mate. Had he been able to do so, and taken ultrasofts for a late-race charge, he would surely have had the pace to challenge Vettel in the closing stages.

But this race never happened thanks to another safety car being triggered by the Red Bullaggeddon on lap 40, at which point Bottas had extended his lead over Vettel to over 13s, and to almost 21s over Hamilton.

Red Bull duo Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were never the victory threat their long-run pace in practice had promised, but they provided a huge amount of entertainment kicking lumps out of each other even before their mutually assured destruction act at Turn 1.

Verstappen and Ricciardo both played their parts in shooting each other, and their team, in the foot

Early on, the Renaults of Carlos Sainz Jr and Nico Hulkenberg battled past both of them while Verstappen and Ricciardo complained about struggling to harvest battery power. It turned out there were some settings problems to be troubleshooted, although the main reason for Renault's relative pace was both drivers were on ultrasofts. Once Hulkenberg eliminated himself by hitting the wall and Sainz pitted, the Red Bulls were back up to fourth and fifth ahead of the recovering Raikkonen.

Verstappen was determined to keep Ricciardo behind, and after being blasted past on the main straight he managed to dive back up the inside to retake his position - making contact with Ricciardo in the process. They survived this skirmish but trouble was clearly brewing.

When Ricciardo finally found a way past Verstappen on lap 35, it seemed this tense battle was over. But when the duo made their pitstops on laps 37 and 38 respectively - Ricciardo stopping first as he had track position - Verstappen made his way back ahead thanks to a quick in-lap assisted by picking up some DRS help from the lapped car of Pierre Gasly.

What had seemed inevitable from the very start of their battle happened two laps later. Riccardo had a run on Verstappen down the main straight, partly thanks to the Dutchman's poor exit to Turn 16. Verstappen moved to the inside to cover, but still Ricciardo had a speed advantage. When Verstappen jinked slightly right, apparently to take a more orthodox line and cede the corner, Ricciardo committed fully to the inside only for Verstappen to straighten up and inch back to the left.

It wasn't a full-on weave from Verstappen, but it wasn't legal as he did move twice. As for Ricciardo, he was committed to a gap he expected to appear but that never quite did. When it became clear they were on a collision course, he had no choice but to hit Verstappen square in the rear and both flew up the escape road and into retirement.

Some argued the twin reprimands they received were a cop-out, but both played their parts in shooting each other, and their team, in the foot. Verstappen, however, needs to be very careful about moving twice in braking areas and created the conditions for the collision. Ricciardo, usually so good at risk assessment in such situations, perhaps let his desperation to assert himself over his team-mate cloud his judgement and got sucked into committing himself with no escape route. They both had a stake in this collision.

The whole field dived into the pits for fresh rubber under the safety car. Vettel was too far behind to have jumped Bottas had he stayed out under the safety car, so it was logical to stop and take on fresh rubber for an equal fight after the restart.

This set up a fascinating dash to the flag, one reduced in length by Romain Grosjean crashing while trying to warm his tyres and extending the safety car period. Apparently, a mistake in a setting played a part in this, but it was a stupid error costing Haas and Grosjean a sixth place that would at least have turned into fifth.

When the race did restart for a four-lap sprint to the chequered flag, Bottas aced the restart, only for Vettel to tow his way back into contention heading into Turn 1. He hit the brakes on the inside line, but locked up over a bump and took to the escape road, letting Hamilton and Raikkonen through.

"I saw the gap on the inside and unfortunately I locked up," said Vettel. "Braking at the same point without the lock-up - it was quite bumpy there - I think I'd make the first corner and it turns out to be a good move. It's easy to say it didn't work, it was the wrong thing, but I had to try. The rest of the race there's only positives, we had a strong race, good pace, controlled the race. That's how it goes."

Bottas had the lead, and the race, in his pocket with Hamilton ready to complete a Mercedes one-two. And that's what would have happened had Bottas not run over a chunk of debris on the main straight three laps from home and suffered a right-rear blowout to hand his team-mate a fortuitous victory. It also gifted second to Raikkonen, who had to battle his way back from 12th at the first restart after pitting for a new front wing following the Ocon crash.

It should have given Vettel third too, but suddenly it was Sergio Perez who had the final podium position after passing the Ferrari at the same time Bottas hit trouble. That's the same Perez who was rear-ended by Sirotkin at Turn 2 on the opening lap and hit the back of Raikkonen's Ferrari. He disappeared into the pits for a new front wing and a fresh set of supersofts under the safety car and took the restart 15th.

Perez started picking up places after the lap six restart, dispatching Brendon Hartley, Stoffel Vandoorne and Gasly within four laps. Two laps after Hulkenberg hit the wall while running fifth, Perez passed Grosjean to get back into the points. He jumped Sainz and Charles Leclerc when they pitted, and passed Lance Stroll on track to run seventh when the Red Bulls wiped each other out.

The original plan was to run to the end, but Perez pitted under the second safety car. The team expected to lose a place to Grosjean thanks to having to serve a five-second penalty for overtaking Stroll illegally while heading into the pits under the early-race safety car, but the Haas team's slow turnaround ensured he didn't.

So when Bottas's world, and right-rear tyre, fell apart and Perez blasted past the flat-spotted Vettel on the main straight, the remarkable comeback was complete. Well, almost, because Perez was the only driver not on ultrasofts at the end because he didn't have any fresh sets left.

"I think today I did the best two laps of my whole career," said Perez. "The last two laps with Sebastian behind, with cold tyres, it was so difficult. I was on the supersoft tyre and I had to keep a very strong rhythm, trying to keep close to Raikkonen to make sure that Sebastian didn't get close enough."

It was a great drive from a driver with an uncanny knack for being there to pick up the scraps left by the big three teams. After all, three of the five podium finishes claimed by teams outside the big three since the start of 2016 have gone to Perez and Force India. As the man himself put it, "it's not a coincidence that we are always there to take anything that is offered to us".

Which brings us back to Hamilton, who was delighted to take his first win of the season but also had the class to seek out and commiserate with Bottas before the podium ceremony.

Hamilton knows how painful it is to lose apparently guaranteed wins through no fault of his own, as he's lost more that way than he's gained through fortune. That's why you can't begrudge him a little help from lady luck on this occasion.

After all, on a day when others are making mistakes or hitting trouble, sometimes a bunch of pars and some bogeys is enough to win.