Lewis Hamilton regrets Mercedes over US Grand Prix spin but Toto Wolff says the car is to blame | F1 News

Lewis Hamilton has apologized to Mercedes for the “devastating” early spin that sent him crashing out of the US Grand Prix on the second lap of the race, but his team principal Toto Wolff was confident it was “100 per cent” not the Briton’s fault.

Looking to bounce back from 17th on the grid after a shock Q1 exit in qualifying on Saturday, Hamilton moved up to 12th in the first two laps of the race but then spun off the corner in spectacular fashion, spinning into Turn 19 for a second time , being at the end of the race. W15 pulled away from him.

The Mercedes spun off the track and then into the gravel, ending Hamilton’s race in place. Teammate George Russell, who finished sixth after a fine recovery from the pit lane, crashed at the same corner in qualifying on Saturday.

Explaining what caught him off guard in the car with the team’s latest upgrade package, Hamilton said: Sky Sport F1: “I mean, this has never happened before. Probably for the first time in everything.

“At that moment I wasn’t even in much of a hurry. The car just started bouncing and Bono (race engineer Peter Bonnington) said I had just got a 40km/h tailwind but the left wheel jumped up in the air and then I lost the rear end.

“Sometimes we have a three-wheeler, it is a problem for us. This has just never happened to me before.

“The same thing happened to George in the new update package we worked so hard to create. Luckily he does a good job (in the race where he finished sixth after pitting) but he’s wearing an old bag and that’s it.” It will be interesting to see if there is anything to learn from this.”

An apologetic Hamilton, who has appeared on nine previous Circuit of the America podiums (although he was disqualified for a technical violation after last year’s race), added: “It’s such a shame, I’m really sorry for the whole team at the factory. .I’ve never gone out of control in a race before.

“It’s definitely not that I wasn’t focused, I was really caught off guard by the bounce I had and obviously I’m devastated.

“But what can I do further and further? “I’ll just try to prepare better for next week and hopefully the car will be in a better place.”

Wolff: Hamilton doesn’t lose his car like that | Did the update cause processing problems?

“100 percent machine,” Wolf responded to Sky Sport F1 when asked what went wrong with Hamilton’s spin.

“He didn’t even press at this stage. We saw it with George on Saturday, it was probably a little too much, but it still lost him sharply and put him up against the wall.”

“Today there was wind and some dirty air from the car in front. We definitely have a problem. I don’t know if it was the same yesterday.

“Lewis Hamilton won’t lose his car on the (second) lap like that.”

Speaking later to the media in Austin, Wolf added: “Where I sit now is 100 percent not Lewis’s fault, and it doesn’t mean I’m defending him.

“It’s clear that there was a gusty wind, there was a headwind, how does all this interact?”

Mercedes unveiled its final W15 upgrade of the season in Austin, but it ended up being a curious weekend, during which the car experienced wild swings in performance and put drivers out of action in costly fashion on more than one occasion.

After crashing, also at Turn 19, late in qualifying and damaging his car, Russell started the race from the pit lane after the team had to revert to an older parts specification for repairs that came into the weekend with only two new sets of improvements .

Underlining the confusing nature of the weekend, Russell then raced strongly in the old specification to move up from 20th to sixth, ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.

“I don’t think we have a fundamental problem with renewal,” Wolf said.

“I think there is more emphasis on aerodynamics and mechanics. We’re going to keep upgrading, there’s no point in doing that because you have a lot of lap time left. But on the other hand, you need to be very open.

“George rode the July upgrade because we didn’t have a pad and it seemed pretty competitive in the race. However, if you’re missing a few tenths in qualifying, it makes a big difference because it’s just not as good as it should be.” be.

“It’s more a question of why we have a car that was the fastest on Friday before the Colapinto situation – (Hamilton) was four-tenths, and in the last sector there were just problems, but he would have been the fastest – and then in Saturday everything changed. In the sprint race our suspension broke, this is one of the explanations. We fixed it in qualifying, and nothing else moved, we had problems with speed.

“Today, the incident in this corner that came out of nowhere didn’t push (Hamilton) at all.”

The Formula 1 triple header in America continues with next weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix, with every session broadcast on Sky Sports F1. Watch every Formula 1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month membership – no contract, cancel anytime.