LONDON, United Kingdom, Oct 18 – Mercedes technical director James Allison was pleased with the manner in which Lewis Hamilton and George Russell dealt with their coming together in Qatar.
The two Mercedes drivers collided at Turn 1 of the Qatar Grand Prix earlier this month, ending Hamilton’s race while Russell recovered from the back of the pack to finish fourth.
Hamilton was quick to take ownership of the unfortunate crash, and Allison revealed that it’s helped the team-mates move past the incident in a healthy manner.
“I think both drivers understood that they were on different tyres, understood that Lewis was likely to be more sparkly in the opening laps of the race, and I think George had acknowledged that neither of them should lose time if that were the case,” Allison revealed in the F1 Nation Podcast’s latest episode.
“But both were also very keen to emphasise the fact that they shouldn’t have a coming together. Now I don’t think that was discussed in the specific context of, Turn 1 lap one, but just generally the opening laps would be where the soft would be at its best, so no point fighting when the strategies would bring that all back together in the race.
“Everything got a huge amount more simple as soon as Lewis had watched the video, because he immediately put his hands up and just said ‘that was my fault, I’m very sorry
“Once someone just acknowledges a mistake and does so fulsomely, you can’t really bang on about it after that, because that is the problem solved.
“It’s a difficult job, starting cleanly, and mistakes happen. Thankfully, they happen very very seldom with this pair, in that way.”
