Quote:
Originally Posted by ascarracinguk
By Bottas handing Hamilton a free stop, you mean Hamilton looked after his tyres better than Bottas again so Bottas couldn’t use tyre strategy against him and go on the alternative tyre.
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You've misunderstood. The safety car holding up Bottas handed Hamilton a free stop. Since it was called after Hamilton passed pit in, it collected Bottas from pit exit, thus allowing Hamilton to build a gap to get a free stop. But ultimately, yes, Hamilton managed his second stint better than Bottas. This would, of course, been a saving grace for Valtteri anyway, but it was still a weird thing to happen.
As for Hamilton losing to a red flag at Monza - not really. He'd earned his penalty before under the safety car, not red flag. The red flag only really put Stroll into contention, which is why without it Sainz could legitimately argue he would have won the race.
As a side note, I thought some more and wondered if the second red flag was there to avoid any further safety car restart shenanigans.