Peter Bonnington has been Lewis Hamilton’s biggest aide in his quest for 7 world championships. The British Engineer has been Hamilton’s race engineer since he arrived at Mercedes in 2013.
Bonnington is referred to as “Bono.” This is the nickname Hamilton calls him on the team radio. He is responsible for relaying key information and strategies to the driver during races.
During his time with Hamilton, Bono helped the Mercedes driver achieve 82 race wins and 6 world championships. This makes the duo the most successful driver-engineer pair in F1’s history.
Hamilton often claims no one understands him better than his race engineer. However, even Bonnington did not expect the incredible success he would witness when the Briton joined the Silver Arrows from McLaren.
Peter Bonnington praises Lewis Hamilton for his success
Before Lewis Hanilton’s arrival, Peter Bonnington served as Jenson Button’s engineer during his championship-winning 2009 season with Brawn. After Mercedes bought out Brawn GP, he served as 7x Champion Michael Schumacher’s engineer.
Later would be appointed to work with Hamilton. However, Bono had no clue about the success the duo would achieve together.
He stated in a video to the 103 GP winner, “Since 2013 we have come a long way, haven’t we? All those times we spent the whole weekends scratching our heads trying to work out how are we going to win this race. You just come out and delivered the goods.”
Bonnington reveals he was quite nervous to meet the driver when he first arrived in Brackley in 2013. In fact, the engineer claims to have set quite a low benchmark for the incoming driver.
He added, “We didn’t realise what we were going to achieve together. It’s something you can never get your head around. I thought a championship or two would be unreal, but how far we have come.”
Hamilton explains the origins of Bono’s iconic radio call
Peter Bonnington is well known for two trademark radio calls. When Lewis Hamilton crosses the line, he can be heard saying, “Get in there Lewis,” cheering up the driver on his wins. Another one is “It’s hammer time,” often told when the driver has to pick up the pace if there is a chance to overtake.
However, the 7x champion revealed the latter to be one of his creations. He said, “Years ago, Bono would come on the radio and say ‘Lewis it’s time to push.’ It was frustrating for me because I am pushing.”
To which Bono clarified that was the moment to push as he had a favourable window of opportunity. So the driver asked him to utter the phrase, framed from one of his favourite songs.
He added, “I told him, ‘Next time, tell me it’s hammer time’. So when he says it, that’s my cue to focus and make no mistakes.”
It’s been a while since we heard both phrases on the driver’s radio. However, with Mercedes improving their performances, we could hear the famed calls from Bonnington pretty soon.
