The puncture which struck Lewis Hamilton through the Qatar Grand Prix was not brought on by the particles scattered when Valtteri Bottas hit a wing mirror, Mercedes believes.
Hamilton was one among two drivers who suffered punctures across the similar time Bottas hit the mirror, which had fallen off Alexander Albon’s automotive. Race management initially issued yellow flags in response to the mirror however withdrew them with out it being recovered.
FIA F1 race director Rui Marques was criticised by some for his resolution to not use a Digital Security Automobile or Security Automobile so marshals might recuperate the particles. The FIA defined his resolution earlier this week.
Now Mercedes‘ head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin has revealed the workforce’s inspection of Hamilton’s broken front-left tyre signifies the particles scattered when Bottas hit the mirror didn’t trigger it to fail.
“We’ve clearly acquired the video knowledge, we will see precisely when that mirror acquired smashed, when it acquired damaged into a variety of items,” mentioned Shovlin in a video printed by the workforce. “We’ve additionally acquired the on-car knowledge and we’re measuring the stress within the tyres dwell.
“Now, surprisingly, we will see Lewis begin to lose stress previous to the mirror being hit by Valtteri. So from that we might say it’s unlikely that it was a particles puncture. That was definitely what we thought on the time as a result of the 2 seemed to be nearly simultaneous.”
Though the damaged mirror doesn’t seem to have brought on Hamilton’s puncture, the chance another piece of particles triggered the failure can’t be dominated out, mentioned Shovlin.
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“It doesn’t imply that he didn’t choose up some particles elsewhere, however we have to anticipate [F1’s official tyre supplier] Pirelli to do their evaluation and their investigations,” he mentioned. “They’ll do a variety of detailed checks on all of the tyres, attempting to grasp if there’s any deterioration.”
Hamilton was on lap 34 when he reported the puncture. Earlier than the race Pirelli steered drivers would go not additional than lap 25 on a set of medium tyres earlier than altering them.
“An enormous quantity of load goes via the front-left round Qatar, mentioned Shovlin. “There have been additionally bits of the tyre that have been sporting fairly closely and once more that’s linked to the truth that you’ve acquired these tremendous quick corners which might be flat out at almost 300kph. So as soon as we get that evaluation, we are going to perceive a bit extra.”
Video from Sainz’s automotive additionally indicated his tyre failed earlier than he reached the particles subject which was scattered when Bottas struck the mirror.
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