“He’s been hugely integral for my success,” Lewis Hamilton acknowledges Pete Bonnington as one of the key persons behind his F1 records
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Only the truest fans of Formula 1 remember the time when Lewis Hamilton, a one-time World Champion, was scouted by the best eyes at Mercedes to become their newest recruit almost 15 years ago. The Briton had made his debut for the German team in 2013 after completing a 6-year-long tenure at McLaren. Since then, a massive period of time has passed and the Lewis of that era has now turned into the seven-time World Championship winning racer who is often regarded as one of the most successful racers in F1 history.
As they say, Formula 1 might look like it is just about the racers who run the laps along the Grand Prix circuits but in reality, it takes a village for one driver to become successful. While the drivers go out on track, several race engineers, statisticians, tactical experts, mechanics, and many other personnel remain hard at work to support him from outside. In the Lewis Hamilton’s case, there are a few very special people whom he owes a big chunk of all his achievements–and Pete Bonnington is one of them.
Ask any Formula 1 fan and they would immediately recall all the thousand times when Lewis Hamilton speaks into his team radio, saying, “Bono, my tires are wearing out” or “Bono, there is something wrong with the car”. This “Bono” is none other than Mercedes race engineer Pete Bonnington, who is currently all-set to walk into his 11th season with Lewis Hamilton. Now, F1 is an unpredictable business where drivers’ contracts are formed and broken almost every year, but even then, Lewis and Bono’s association is one of the longest-standings ones in this field.
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Lewis Hamilton says Pete Bonnington is no less than a brother to him
Owing to the friendship that has survived a decade in Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton has spoken about his race engineer, Pete Bonnington, and his comments were, “I’m incredibly grateful for Bono. I’ve had an amazing journey with him, I think we’ve got one of the longest, if not the longest standing driver-engineer partnerships that there’s been, and he’s been hugely integral to success.”
He also said, “We’ve had an amazing journey together, we’ve supported each other on and off-track, through good and bad times, and I love working with Bono; he’s like a brother to me, a brother from another mother.”
The 2022 Formula 1 campaign proved to be Lewis Hamilton’s only winless season ever. Now, the upcoming challenge for him is to press reset and get back to his winning ways so that he can get his hands on the record-setting eighth World Championship title which might finally settle the debate of who is better–Lewis Hamilton or Michael Schumacher.
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)