Mystery of Lewis Hamilton’s “broken seat” explained by Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton ꦬreported a broken seat in Bahrain but M🙈ercedes have now explained the issue

Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 2, Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,
Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 2, Saudi Arabian Grand…

Mercedes have insisted “the seat was fine” - and have detailed why 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton thought he had a big problem with the W15 la𒀰st wee✃kend.

Hamilton reported a broken seat to his race engineer Peter Bonington at the season-opening F1 Bahrain Gra🀅nd Prix but, ahead of this weekend’s race in Saudi Arabia, Mercedes have♍ fed back about the issue.

“Well, we obviously got the car back, checked the seat straight away, and the seat was fine,” Trackside En�ꦫ�gineering Director Andrew Shovlin said.

“Now, the seats are obviously designed to be able to be lifted out because in the event of an accident, thꦰe driver comes out in his seat.

“And ultimately, the thing that holds t🥀he seat in the car is th💟e driver who's strapped into his seat belts. 

“The only thing we can think is that if Lewis was ever so slightly loose, he moved a bit and maybe the seat came up, had a little bit of motion and dropped dow𒆙n again, because looking at it afterwards, there's no evidence that anything's broken, that it was in the wr☂ong position.

“But fundamentally that wh꧟ilst it might be a bit uncomfortable for the driver if they're not really rigidly located in the car, fundamentall𓆏y a failure of the seat doesn't mean that the driver can come loose out.

“So they're always safe. But as I said, it looks like this was something very subtle that maybe there was a bit of motion, and then it settle🗹d down and was fine for the rest of the race.”

The Mercedes W15 🦂also struggled with cooling problems in Bahrain.

Technical Director James Allison said: “Well that was act⛦ually the biggest😼 unanswered mystery from the weekend.

“We were substantially hotter in the race ♏than we expected to be.

“And while it's always something of a g👍amble choosing your cooling level for a given race weekend because you're having to take a bet on free practice r💜unning, what the weather is going to be like on a Sunday.

“And normally you're also making a few corrections ওfor different power levels and, other things that can vary between the race and when you're doing your practices.

“This particular weekend was one of the weekends where🥃 we had to make the fewest guesses pꦆossible.

“Since we'd already run this coolin💎g level loads of times in winter testing, we'd a♌lready run these power levels in winter testing as well as free practice.

“The temperature that we got on race day was incredibly close to what we predicted it would be, and therefore we had all 🐬of the circumstances to make an accurate prediction for where the temper🦹atures would be.

“The fact that we got it wrong by more than 1 or 2 degrees is extremely unusual and quite punishing, because once the cars are above the limit that the engine ꧟guys will, guarantee the engine to.

“We just have to back off the car. We have to back off the throttle at the end of t🍌he straights, we have to turn down some of the modes of the engin🐠e just to make them survive.

“And that just robs you of lap time, it robs you of tyre temperature, and it 🌼jus♐t ruins your race effectively.

“So it isn't solved yet. It's one of the things that we got a programme of work this week in the factory to try to understand of the very small number🍸 of things that could possibly have changed between free practice and race, what was෴ it that gave rise to that unexpected temperature increase?

“And, it will be a considerable relief when 💙we pin that down and make sure it doesn't then happen to us again at any point this year.”

Hamilton finished in P7 at last week’s season opener but will ꧙hope for a step forward in his W15’s performance this weekend in Jeddah.

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