Mercedes has provided details over the extent of Lewis Hamilton’s front wing damage at last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton made contact with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon on two occasions during the race, coming away with front wing damage in one instance.
Ocon picked up a five-second time penalty for clashing with the seven-time World Champion, a punishment he described as unjustified.
Hamilton went on to cross the line in eighth place, his worst result at the Principality since 2009.
Speaking in Mercedes’ F1 Debrief video, the team’s Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin says Hamilton was losing two-tenths of a second per lap with his damage.
“It wasn’t too big a number,” Shovlin said. “Looking at the data we get off the car, it was around one to two tenths of a second.
“So not large and conveniently the red flag allows us to repair any accident damage, so we could swap that front wing without actually having any time penalty for doing the work during a pit stop.
“More pleasing was that that was the only damage that we had over the course of the Monaco weekend.
“So, really good job by both drivers to bring the cars home more or less intact.”
After the race restarted following a red flag period for barrier repairs, Hamilton found himself stuck behind the other Alpine of Fernando Alonso.
With Monaco’s track layout offering very little overtaking opportunities, Shovlin says he is sure Hamilton would’ve been competing with team-mate George Russell and McLaren’s Lando Norris further up the field if he was in clear air.
“Almost certainly yes, the frustration with Lewis’s Monaco race was that he spent almost all of it in traffic,” Shovlin said.
“He didn’t get many laps to show what he could actually do but the car was working reasonably well.
“We haven’t got the pace there to compete with the Ferrari and the Red Bull but certainly he would have been in amongst that battle with George and with Lando.”
Lewis Hamilton is no John Watson. Immature, impetuous, driving it like a stolen car, it’s almost every other time Hamilton flubs his pass. FiA stewards are so deathly terrified he’ll play the race card, they’ll always turn their heads the other way, arbitrarily blame the other driver.
No he isnt! Watson was journeyman F1 driver not a 7 time world champion.
Hamilton is far from a 7-time world champion, either. His stats are grossly inflated. Mercedes won the regulation lottery in 2014 and the FIA created a rule package so other teams couldn’t possibly catch up. This is why Hamilton won 6 world titles during that period — and if he were even decent he would have won 7 but couldn’t even beat Rosberg (and would have lost in 2015 as well if not for Rosberg’s mechanical failures and someone crashing into him). Otherwise, he would be a still be a one-time champion and probably LONG retired by now.
Man, you’re one delusional bitter little lemon aren’t you? Still at least you’re not racist as well like the OP
The fact that Hamilton didn’t get ANYTHING after sending Max to the hospital as Silverstone is PROOF that the Stewards and FIA bend over backwards for this guy. The most pampered driver of all time. Thank God he’s being exposed as the fraud he is by a 22 year old