Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton is convinced that by making sure Sebastian Vettel pipped his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, in the pitstop during Sunday afternoon's Monaco Grand Prix, that they have well and truly chosen their number one driver for the season after just a handful of races.
Sebastian was following behind Kimi Raikkonen in second place until Ferrari called the Finn in for his pitstop, enabling Vettel to put in some super fast laps in clean air while Kimi was stuck in traffic and unable to up his pace to match. Then when they finally called Vettel in for his stop he had pulled out enough of a lead to emerge in first place with Kimi relegated to P2.
According to Hamilton, this move confirms that they are putting all their eggs in the Vettel basket for the 2017 Championship title.
"It's clear to me that Ferrari have chosen their number one driver," Lewis told Sky. "So they are going to be pushing everything to make sure Sebastian will maximise on all of his weekends. On strategy that just doesn't happen, the leading car, it's very hard for him to get jumped by the second car unless the team decide to favour the other car. That's very clear."
