Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin has said he’ll miss Lewis Hamilton’s “feel” behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car once he leaves for Ferrari.
As has been typed countless times by motorsport journalists the world over, Hamilton will leave the Silver Arrows for Ferrari at the end of this year’s F1 campaign.
That will mark the end of a 12-season relationship that started back in 2013, and one in which Hamilton brought six Drivers’ titles to Mercedes and contributed to eight consecutive Constructors’ titles from 2014 through 2021.
Speaking to select media during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, Shovlin noted that he’ll miss Hamilton’s ability to read what his Mercedes car is doing underneath him, an innate skill he will take to Maranello.
“I’ll miss him as a character because he’s good fun to work with,” he said.
“His race pace has been extremely good, but what he brought to the team is an awful lot of speed and a good feel for what the car needs.
“He is very good at highlighting where the weaknesses are in the car.
“But it’s difficult to say what would miss specifically from an engineering point of view – other than he just has this innate feel for what the car’s doing, what the tyres are doing, and that’s very valuable when you feed that into the development process.”
After a barren run without a win since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Hamilton’s ability to feel the car beneath him was on full display at Silverstone this July.
The seven-time World Champion expertly nursed his soft tyres home in the final stint of this year’s British Grand Prix to end his win drought and take his record tally to 104 victories.
That tally now stands at 105, with Hamilton inheriting the Belgian GP win following George Russell’s disqualification.
Mercedes are well and truly back on form, winning three of the last four GPs and it looks as if Hamilton is now leaving the team when it’s back en route to challenging for titles.
That certainly wasn’t the case when Hamilton signed with Ferrari ahead of the season getting underway and Shovlin understands Hamilton’s motivations.
“He clearly wants to have another chapter in his career beyond his very successful one with Mercedes,” he said.
“He’s of an age where, if he was going to do that, he would need to do it sooner rather than later.
“If we were dominating the championship, I suspect it would have been difficult for him to do that.
“But I think a big part of Lewis is wanting to have another team and another challenge in his career.
“I think, when someone’s decided that they want to do that, it can be quite difficult to persuade them otherwise.”
