In the round-up, James Allison argues Mercedes should take blame for Lewis Hamilton’s dismal qualifying performance in Shanghai.
In brief, Hamilton’s China qualification was a team error.
After Lewis Hamilton was eliminated from Q1 in grand prix qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix after changing his setup following a successful sprint race, Mercedes technical director James Allison claims the team should have been more insistent that he follow the same run plan as teammate George Russell.
“Lewis was absolutely explicit about it afterwards, he said he really wished he had taken the same approach that George had taken which was in his first run in Q1, George fuelled to do two timed laps so that he could have a feel of the car in the first flying lap, do a cool down lap and then have another bite at the cherry which would just give him more of a feel for the car,” Allison went on to say.
“In contrast, Lewis went later in the session, one timed lap after another, and he was very clear afterwards that he wanted another lap. He discovered that the alterations he’d made had made the car more understeery, making it easier for the car to lock up under braking, and he was simply pinching those front brakes in a way that was causing him problems.
“I believe we all witnessed what occurred on his second run, which was only his second timed lap, so just racing down the main straight into that bottom hairpin, he just got a little out of shape on the braking, went deep, and that was 0.7 of a second right there. That’s a significant gap, without which he could have easily made it to Q3 and beyond. So he’d raise his hand and say, “My mistake, my error.”
“I think we would be a little more rounded and say we should have actually encouraged more strongly that he was pursuing a programme a bit more like George’s, so that’s our mistake and we should frankly be making a car that is just not so tricky as the one we’ve got at the moment which is causing the drivers to make very uncharacteristic errors.”
Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar was fastest of all on the final day of the in-season Formula 2 test in Barcelona, ahead of Campos teammate Pepe Marti.
Hadjar’s best time in the morning session was the fastest of the three-day test, four tenths faster than Marti, with Williams junior Franco Colapinto finishing third. Amaury Cordeel set the pace in the evening practice, during which teams concentrated on race simulation runs with higher fuel levels.
The F2 championship’s next round will take place over the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix weekend in Imola in mid-May.
Hesketh commemorates first Formula One triumph.
Members of the Hesketh Formula 1 team commemorated 50 years since their first victory in a race contested under F1 regulations at Silverstone.
The Vintage Sports Car Club’s Spring Start meeting featured a demonstration run of the Hesketh 308, driven by future world champion James Hunt, to commemorate the car’s 50th anniversary of winning the International Trophy event at Silverstone in 1974, the team’s first victory in Formula One machinery.
Hesketh and Hunt would win their sole world championship round together in the 1975 Dutch Grand Prix before the team was dropped from the Formula One grid after the 1978 season.
