Mercedes calm after Sochi storm that led to Hamilton's "unbelievable achievement"

Team avoided 'frenzy' as Russian GP drew to a close

Ian Parkes

Saturday 2 October 2021 18:15

Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott has revealed the calmness that prevailed across the team that allowed Lewis Hamilton to clinch his historic 100th F1 grand prix victory.

A storm on Sunday morning put the Russian Grand Prix in doubt, but Hamilton went on to seize his moment of glory after a vital late-race call that saw him switch from slick tyres to intermediates as further rain fell over one half of the Sochi Autodrom.

Asked as to his heart rate over the closing six laps, Elliott revealed to wearing a monitor at a couple of previous races, noting it rose during qualifying, at race starts and pit stops.

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Believing it was "strong" late on in Sochi, Elliott has praised those around him in the race control room for their measured approach during chaotic circumstances.

"What we have got to bear in mind is I am surrounded by a team of people that all know what they are doing, they are all very calm and experienced and they are sitting there making the right calls," said Elliott.

"So what you might think is a sort of frenzied amount of activity in the race support room, that isn’t really how it happened.

"People calmly do their job, focus on their bits of what they need to do and feed that information in.

"And it wasn’t until after the race finished that the joyous sound came up within the race support room. Fantastic given we hadn’t won for a few races, that opportunity to celebrate together.”

Hamilton's haul unlikely to ever be beaten

Hamilton has now won 79 of his century of races during his time with Mercedes, with Elliott hailing the seven-time champion as "an unbelievable driver" and that "to break all the records he has broken is something special".

From the team's perspective, Elliott added: "For us as part of this team to be involved with 79 of them is amazing.

"But in actual fact, what you have to bear in mind is some of us have been with Lewis for a lot more than that.

"I personally have seen 88 of his wins because I spent a chunk of my early career at McLaren.

"For some of my colleagues at HPP who work on the power unit they've seen all 100 of Lewis' wins. So it is an amazing achievement for those guys as well.

"Coming back to Lewis, I mean that is an unbelievable achievement. It’s probably not going to be surpassed for a long, long time, if it ever is.”