Mercedes F1 Director Shovlin Reveals How Close Hamilton Came to a Retirement From British GP

The recent British Grand Prix was marred with controversy after Lewis Hamilton took out race leader, Max Verstappen, in what ended up being quite a dangerous crash. However, it could have ended badly for Hamilton, too, as his crash with the Dutch driver took a massive hit on his Mercedes.

Chief race engineer for the Silver Arrows, Andrew Shovlin, revealed that if the session hadn’t been red-flagged, Hamilton would have had to retire from the race. However, the seven-time world champion had luck on his side, as the stewards brought out the red flags, giving the team time need to fix Hamilton’scar.

Shovlin doesn’t think Hamilton would have made it without the red-flag

As the Knight was fighting for the lead, he hit Verstappen which sent him flying into the barrier. Hamilton did sustain some damage but the crash was huge that the stewards had to call the race off for a period of time. This gave the Brackley-based squad enough time to repair his car and continue to fight for the win.

After the British GP, as quoted by Motorsport.Total, Shovlin said, “The left front rim broke. If the race hadn’t been stopped with the red flag, we would have had to accept a retirement.”

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How did the race pan for Hamilton?

The Mercedes driver was awarded a 10-second time penalty for his incident with Verstappen, which he served in the pits. Later, he was soon chasing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for the lead and got past him in the closing laps of the race.

Hamilton crossed the line in the first place and brought home a much-needed victory for his Brackley-based squad. He bagged twenty-five points, which brought down Verstappen’s championship lead to just eight points.

The Knight was extremely pleased as he achieved a victory at his home race. Hamilton will certainly be looking forward to the Hungarian GP and aim for another win that will see him close the gap to the Red Bull prodigy.

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