‘It’s been so long’: Fans go crazy as Lewis Hamilton-Peter Bonnington famous phrase ‘Hammertime’ is finally used again
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Lewis Hamilton and his race engineer Peter Bonnington
‘Hammertime’ is perhaps Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington’s most iconic phrase. It is a special terminology that is meant to signify to Hamilton that it’s time to give everything and push as hard as he possibly can. But unfortunately, the Briton hasn’t had too many opportunities to really go for it this season.
Rarely has he ever been close or even close-ish to a win. Even on the three occasions, he did come close, it was never close enough, and it always went away from him in the end. There’s Silverstone – where he was pushing to catch Leclerc and the safety car ended that. Zandvoort, where Mercedes’ tyres decision put him in a bad position at the restart. This time, it was less painful.
They just did not have enough pace to keep Max Verstappen from notching a record-equalling 13th victory this season. But this race did end up providing ‘Bono’ with the opportunity to use the famous line. Just around lap 12, when Hamilton was running 2nd, his race engineer said: “Lewis, it’s Hammertime.” and the fans were incredibly happy.
It was finally ‘hammertime’ for Lewis Hamilton
While the phrase made a return, the result wasn’t unfortunately what Lewis Hamilton would have wanted. While he led the race from lap 41 onwards, Max Verstappen was in recovery mode, after an 11.1 seconds pit stop. On lap 50, the Dutchman finally caught up, and despite Hamilton’s best efforts, passed him, and then even put quite a bit of distance between the two of them, eventually finishing 4.892s ahead.
But to anyone’s memory, this was the first time that the phrase ‘Hammertime’ was uttered this season by Peter Bonnington, and fans of the Briton had been waiting to hear it for some time. It has been a victory-less year for Mercedes and is set to be Hamilton’s first win-less year, EVER, but this moment did provide some sliver of comfort to supporters.
At the start of the race, Hamilton was tussling with teammate George Russell. While attempting to pass him, Russell locked up going into turn 1 and made contact with Carlos Sainz, who was fighting Max Verstappen and was moving across the track as a result. Sainz spun around and went from P1 at the start to P20, eventually retiring due to a water leak. This in relation to the phrase was used as the base for a joke.
It’s hard to tell if Bonnington will have another opportunity to use ‘hammer time’ this season, but as for Hamilton, he does not feel that they’ll have much chance for victory against Red Bull. But in motorsport, there’s always a chance, and the stars can align when you least expect it.
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