What Will Mercedes Miss About Hamilton According To Trackside Engineering Director
F1Wednesday, 14 August 2024 at 22:00
Andrew Shovlin (Mercedes's trackside engineering director) revealed what he will miss about Lewis Hamilton after he departs at the end of 2024.
Lewis Hamilton is racing his last season with the Mercedes F1 team. His 12-year stint with the German team is coming to an end, as he will leave for Ferrari after the last race in Abu Dhabi.
The seven-time World Champion has been a huge part of Mercedes's success between 2013 and now, and the team will undoubtedly miss him.
The trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin (who has been with Mercedes since the beginning), suggested that the biggest thing his team will miss about the 39-year-old is his character. He told the media:
"I'll miss him [Hamilton] as a character, because he's good fun to work with. His race pace has been extremely good, but what he brought to the team is an awful lot of speed and a good feel for what the car needs. And he is very good at highlighting where the weaknesses are in the car."
From that point of view, Hamilton will have an opportunity to show what he has and how big of a difference he can make once he joins Ferrari, which seems to be the one team from the top four that currently struggles.
Apparently, the seven-time World Champion is very good at identifying which part of the car needs improvement and giving the right feedback to his engineers.
Billy Monger recently revealed how the Mercedes driver takes detailed notes after every single race, which is something that we don't see on TV but might have a significant impact not only on his driving but also on the feedback to his team. Shovlin added:
"It's difficult to say what we would miss specifically from an engineering point of view. Other than he just has this innate feel for what the cars doing, what the tyres are doing - and that's very valuable when you feed that into the development process."
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