Why Mercedes repaired Lewis Hamilton damage with glue and tape

Hamilton in the pits in Silverstone — Photo: © LAT Images

Mercedes

Why Mercedes repaired Hamilton damage with glue and tape

Hamilton sustained damage in his collision with Verstappen

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Thursday 22 July 2021 09:29

Mercedes chief technical officer James Allison has explained why the team used glue and tape to repair damage to Lewis Hamilton's front wing at the British Grand Prix.

Hamilton sustained relatively minor scarring to his W12 after his collision with Max Verstappen at the 180mph Copse corner that sent the Red Bull driver into a tyre wall at 150mph.

Mercedes had revealed that a wheel-rim issue would have forced a retirement for Hamilton had a red-flag period not intervened.

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The car also carried light front-wing damage that the team opted to repair with glue and tape rather than change the wing during the 36-minute break.

On the reason for the decision, Allison revealed: "Just because that was the easiest thing for us to do. The wing aerodynamically was completely unaffected by the incident.

"All the bits that generate the downforce, look after the performance of the car, they were just pukka and we knew very, very clearly what the balance of the car was with that wing on that day.

"We didn’t need to disturb the car in any way by putting a new front wing on because the small manufacturing differences between the front wings might have given us a slightly different balance.

"It was far more expedient just to fix the tiny bit of damage that we had incurred, which was the breaking free of the front-tyre temperature sensor from its mounting, just to quickly fix that with a bit of tape and glue rather than have to change the whole element.

"It was just the easiest thing for us to do at the time and the best way of ensuring that we would have identical performance after the restart from what we had before.”

"Utterly brilliant" to have fans back at Silverstone

Hamilton was handed a 10-second penalty after he was adjudged to have been predominantly at fault for the collision, but shrugged the punishment off to reel in Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and take victory in front of a capacity Silverstone crowd.

Asked about the atmosphere at the first event with a full attendance since the Covid pandemic struck, Allison replied: “Well, the answer to this is simple. It was utterly brilliant.

"It's always good to have a fully packed grand prix weekend and Silverstone is always one of the favourites in that regard because the people that come are so enthusiastic.

"But to do so after so many races where we've had such meagre attendance in the grandstands or none at all because of Covid made it a particular thrill.

"Absolutely great to look out across the grandstands at all those faces as we came out of the garage.

"It just reminded you of what a pleasure and a privilege it is to be involved in this sport and I hope it's a signal of many, many happy races like that to come.”