Lewis Hamilton's last-minute decision caused seat drama - Mercedes

Hamilton, Mercedes

Last-minute Hamilton decision caused seat drama - Mercedes

Team reveals driver's request to lower seat for Imola led to urgent fix on the grid

Will Gray

Saturday 7 November 2020 18:25

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Mercedes has revealed the drama over Lewis Hamilton’s seat on the grid at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was due to his own decision to lower his position in the car just minutes before the start of the race.

On a shortened race weekend, where teams had just 90 minutes practice before qualifying and the race, Hamilton had initially chosen to raise his seat for better visibility but changed his mind after making his way to the grid.

Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin revealed: “Lewis had lifted his seat a bit for free practice. He kept that for qualifying and on the laps to the grid he decided he’d like to try dropping it down again.

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“We made that adjustment. When he got in and pressed the brake pedal, there was a bit of movement in the seat, so the guys just jumped Lewis out, pulled the seat out and were checking everything was tight.”

The situation looked dramatic, as a Mercedes team member was seen running to the grid with a spare seat, but Shovlin explained that all was in hand and it was simply a precaution in case the original seat could not be fixed back in place.

However, he did admit that teams were “less well prepared” than normal ahead of the Imola race after losing two-and-a-half hours of practice time as F1 trialled a new shorter race weekend format.

He admitted the shorter race weekend was “a bit of pressure” and explained: “It is possible to get most of the information that you need, (but) you can’t do as good a job as normal.

“Fitting all the normal work - high fuel, low fuel - into one session is difficult, it’s always going to be a bit of a compromise, but it looked like most people did broadly the same thing.

“You haven’t got time to be making big changes because the more you are in the garage the less you are out learning. It’s a good challenge. It means you go into the race less well prepared, with more unknowns, but it is quite a nice format.”

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