Andrew Shovlin says that Lewis Hamilton damaging his front wing on two separate occasions cost him a lot of time in Jeddah.
The inaugural Saudi Arabian GP was far from being a clean race. It was full of scraps and collisions, and we even saw the safety car deployed twice. One of the people who took damage under the lights in Jeddah was race winner Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton hit his front wing with another car on two separate occasions. During the second restart, his wing clipped the inside of Esteban Ocon’s Alpine. This led to minor damage to his car, but the worst was yet to come.
During lap 37, he ran into the back of title rival Max Verstappen who unexpectedly slowed down in the middle of the track. The Red Bull driver gave 1st place to the Briton but caught the latter off guard.
This resulted in crucial damage to his W12, but he could continue. The seven-time World Champion took the lead from Verstappen and brought home his 3rd consecutive race win.
After the race, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin revealed the extent of damage Hamilton’s car took. “The damage was going up and up!” said Shovlin.
“We started off with probably only about a tenth or two lost. After he got sandwiched and Esteban rode over it, we were quite lucky that it just seemed to hit the road. We lost a few bits, but it bounced back. No more damage.”
Regardless of the damage, Lewis Hamilton set another fastest lap
Hamilton won the race despite taking significant damage and set another quickest lap around the Jeddah Corniche circuit. That bonus point puts him on the level with Max Verstappen going into the last race of the year.
“After the incident with Max, we then lost the whole side of it, so you’re getting up nearer four-tenths of performance.” Shovlin continued. “He’s very determined. We were very much in two minds, as we were seeing other people struggling with the tyres.” he said.
“We could see that the wing was most definitely not guaranteed to stay on the car after the afternoon or the evening that it had had. It’s a difficult decision between, do you go for the point that Lewis knew would put him level, or do you play it safe?”
“Ultimately, Lewis was the one who took the decision and that decision was probably aided by the fact he can’t actually see that. Because if he was watching the TV like we were, he may have thought better of it!” he concluded.
