The 2022 Spanish GP of F1 has been quite a roller coaster for Hamilton , who was about to be out of the race at the first change and finally finished in fifth place.
He was starting with mediums, unlike most of his rivals, and suffered a touch from Kevin Magnussen on the first lap, which caused him a puncture and a pit stop earlier than expected. There, the English opened the radio to ask Mercedes to leave to “save the engine”.
From the team they told him no, that it was possible to be eighth, and the seven-time champion concentrated to, in fact, finish fourth in the last laps. Then, a fuel problem caused him to lose position with Carlos Sainz, but he ended up adding 10 points.
Asked if he felt defeated after the first lap incident with the Haas, Hamilton explained his decision to ask to retire: “It’s not that I was defeated, it was just that I was literally 30 seconds behind, so why would I use an engine to finish last or outside the top 15 if that can lead to a penalty later?
“I don’t know if reliability is an issue, we’ve already seen today that there was something in the end. I thought we might as well save the engine so we can fight another day. stop, never give up, and that’s what I did.
Despite the step forward that Mercedes has taken with its updates this weekend, Hamilton recalled other races in which he has not had the pace to come back, and based on that, he proposed throwing in the towel: “Obviously, I expected a calmer race without the problem at the start. And suddenly I was behind the last one, 30 seconds behind. If you remember in Jeddah, where I started 15th and struggled to get into the top 10, I was thinking it was impossible to get back into points positions.”
“But the team told me I could go eighth. I couldn’t understand that at first, and I thought they were definitely being super optimistic. But I said ‘okay, I’ll give it my all and see where I end up.’ from eighth. So it’s a bit of bad luck at the end with the problem, but I’m glad I’m done.”
Regarding the incident with Magnussen, Lewis Hamilton was not very critical: “Hmm… I was on a normal line, I was on the inside, he came out of nowhere and touched me. He came from behind and then hit the side of my car. I can’t say anything about it, it is what it is.”
For his part, the director of Mercedes, Toto Wolff , praised his driver’s comeback and in turn was sympathetic to his request at the start of the race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
“I think it was just the shock of not being able to believe he was there, it’s not that he lacked faith. We’re talking about a driver who comes from being 38 seconds behind the last driver, goes for it all, makes fast laps and finishes fifth. That’s it.” it shows his mentality, his quality and determination”, concluded the Austrian.
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