Written by Aiden Hover
Two weeks on from what was one of the most shocking race restarts in recent memory, Sir Lewis Hamilton has confirmed that his team have made adjustments to his steering wheel to avoid making the same costly mistake again. The mistake in question, in which Hamilton accidentally flicked on his ‘magic button’ as he upshifted, saw him lock up massively into turn 1 and throw away a sure-fire chance of a win.
Whilst this mistake was gold dust for Max Verstappen, who had crashed out from the lead of the race following a scary puncture, Hamilton is well aware that mistakes like this could very easily cost him the world championship.
The ‘magic button’ that hamilton, unfortunately, turned on moves the brake bias of the car to the front. Drivers usually use this in order to heat their tyres behind a safety car or on formation laps, but would rarely ever use this setting during race conditions as it severely reduces the car’s rear braking power. Seeing as this mistake caused Hamilton to run off so dramatically into the runoff at Turn 1, Mercedes have been working hard to remove the chance of this happening again.
“We have basically just but a shroud around it,” said Hamilton, “So you have to dig for it, basically. It cant be accidentally touched. That was an accident waiting to happen. We learnt the hard way.”
Mercedes will be hoping that this simple, but crucial fix can ensure that a similar issue cannot happen again.
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