The equality between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen was endorsed with the seven-time champion’s fastest lap at the Saudi Arabian GP , where the Englishman got a valuable point. The Mercedes driver set an incredible 1m30.734s on lap 47 on hard tires and with the front wing battered by a couple of contacts. But how did he do it?
When racing resumed after the red flag, the W12 ‘s right front wing deflector was damaged in contact with Esteban Ocon’s Alpine. Andrew Shovlin , head of trackside engineering for Mercedes, reckons that damage cost him a tenth of a second per lap based on telemetry data.
Things took a significant turn for the worse when the Briton tagged Max Verstappen’s Red Bull Racing from behind on lap 37, attempting to win back position on the order of Race Direction .
The side spoiler, already damaged, completely broke off, no longer supporting the extra flaps , and the feeling that a part of the wing could suddenly detach and possibly cause further damage.
“The performance loss at the beginning was a tenth or so, but after the collision the damage was much more significant and our data showed a performance loss of more than four tenths,” Shovlin explained.
“At first we saw part of it scraping the tarmac and we were worried that when turning the damage might increase, but then luckily the remaining part didn’t hit the curbs.”
“Lewis most likely didn’t realize how damaged his front wing was, because he kept pushing to win the race and set the fastest lap.
“Lewis was very determined and we were at a crossroads: seeing how broken he was, we didn’t know whether to encourage Hamilton to go for the fastest lap or advise him to take a more cautious tack.
“In the end it was Lewis who made the decision and probably that choice might have been helped by the fact that he couldn’t check the actual damage to the front wing, because if he had been watching TV like us he might have had doubts. .” he added.
Hamilton, whose front wing lost four tenths of a second, edged out teammate Valtteri Bottas by 674 thousandths. As well as having an intact W12, the Finn had a set of medium tires and therefore, on paper, better performance over at least one lap. Verstappen, for his part, stayed at 754 thousandths.
