Mercedes on Lewis Hamilton’s challenging start: “Hopefully it balances up over the season.”


Mercedes on Lewis Hamilton’s challenging start: “Hopefully it balances up over the season.”

Lewis Hamilton

The 2022 season for the Silver Arrows seems to have hit a slump as the team is struggling to make any strong progress with their car’s porpoising issues. And while George Russell seems to have made his peace with the W13 as he remains the only driver this season to post a top 5 finish in every race so far, Lewis Hamilton’s struggles and luck appear to keep getting worse.

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In Miami, George got lucky with the safety car and made a pitstop without having to lose his track position. Whereas Lewis Hamilton didn’t do so and eventually lost out to his teammate after the resumption.

Explaining this decision in a video, Mercedes engineer, Mike Elliot, says, “At that stage of the race, with both Valtteri and Lewis on the hard tyre, Lewis was closing into the back of Valtteri and was going to have a chance to overtake on track.

He added, “The safety car came at a completely wrong time for Lewis… If we did pit him he would lose track position to George.”

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Lewis Hamilton’s bad luck continues

Lewis Hamilton at the start of the Miami GP
Lewis Hamilton at the start of the Miami GP

Lewis Hamilton has been unlucky with the timing of safety cars this season. But he has also had his good luck in the pocket in the season opener as both Red Bulls DNFed, and he bagged his only podium this season so far.

Over the radio, Lewis was asked about pitting, but he asked the team to take the call. And as the decision didn’t go so well, he shared his displeasure with the call made by his team. Mike Elliot, following Toto Wolff, also defended the call made by the team. 

He said, “There was no right or wrong answer, and sometimes the drivers have a better feel in the car than we as engineers do looking at the data. Unfortunately, Lewis has been unlucky a couple of times already this season, but it’s just the way things pan out and hopefully over the season it balances up.”

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