F1 News
Mercedes engineers still struggling to understand Hamilton fastest lap
- Bevan Youl
Mercedes engineers are still trying to wrap their heads around how Lewis Hamilton set the fastest lap of the race on 32 lap old tyres at the British Grand Prix.
Newly introduced this season was the rule that if a driver inside the tope ten held the fastest lap of the race then they would get an extra point, leading to strategies of pitting near the end for fresh tyres to set the fastest lap.
Valtteri Bottas did just that at the British Grand Prix, pitting with seven laps to go for softs and setting a time of 1:27.406.
But somehow Hamilton pulled out a 1:27.369 on the last lap of the race on hard tyres that were 32 laps old.
Mercedes head strategist James Vowles can’t figure out how the Brit managed it.
He said to the teams Youtube channel: "We truthfully have no idea at all how Lewis did the fastest lap of the race on 32-lap old, hard tyres.
"Hardest tyre available, completely used up and yet he does a fantastic lap at the end. Well done to him, [but we have] no idea.
"Because we weren't expecting him to do that fastest lap of the race on 32-lap old hard tyres, we did actually plan for him to do an extra pit stop towards the end.
“It was a free pit stop. Valtteri behind had to stop anyway, he'd only run mediums at that point, so had to complete the requirement for the race of using another compound.
“He was very comfortable with how his tyres were behaving however which is why ultimately, we left him out and as you saw, he did the fastest lap irrespective."