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Mercedes sees Hamilton being patient

Mercedes sees Hamilton being patient

06-05-2021 07:59 Last update: 10:41
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GPblog.com

Lewis Hamilton has been with the Mercedes team for seasons, but he continues to impress time and time again. Andrew Shovlin argues that the Briton is tremendously good on his tyres, even while (preparing to) overtake on the track, creating a very favourable advantage over the competition.

""I think, if you looked at today it was Lewis who won it. He was down in P3, he overtook on track twice and got up front and controlled the race," Shovlin told various media outlets after Hamilton's win at the Portuguese Grand Prix. The top man had words of praise for Hamilton: "The cars, it is very difficult to pick them apart but if you are going to pick anything apart, Lewis was the best driver today and that is why he is sat on the top step."

Where many drivers struggled greatly with the tricky track conditions at Portimao, it was Hamilton who came out on top and managed to drive around the problems. The tarmac was very slippery and there was very little grip and following a car in front of you wasn't that easy either. "He seems to know where to position the car building up to it and also often, he doesn't keep trying lap after lap, he sort of just sits there and takes the opportunity.

Where Hamilton excels

Hamilton, like Verstappen, knows how to handle the tyres well and that is perhaps where he differs from his teammate Valtteri Bottas, although they will never say that out loud. "His feel for the tyres is the key to how he manages to sit there, not overheat them and look after them but he has got the same tyres as everyone else and he damaged them by getting hot and sliding on them. The key to it is keeping them cool and limiting the sliding and I think he is just better at it than the others", Shovlin concluded.