Damon Hill pinpoints glaring flaw in Lewis Hamilton’s skill-set after F1 Dutch Grand Prix
The Mercedes driver endured a disappointing weekend at the F1 Dutch Grand Prix, qualifying in 13th then finishing the🧸 race sixth.
Hamilton insisted “the team’s ꧋call” to use slick tyres, in contrast to most of the grid, cost him a possible victory.
But ex-F1 driver Hill told Sky afterwards: “It seems to me that when all the confusion is out of the way, and he just gets on with ♑driving, then he’s the fastest driver.
“But when there are lots of decisions to make, and there’s a bit of confusion between what ಌthe team wants and what he wa🐻nts, then it makes him a little bit hesitant.”
George Russell also vented his anger via Mercedes’ team radio afꦆter slipping to 18th when he pittꩲed, after his tyre strategy also backfired.
Hill said: “It was raining quickly and very hard.
“The driver also has a responsibility to give a clue about whaꦰt’s goi🧜ng on.
“You can see, when you go around, yo🐈u should’ve been able to see that there was rain coming.
“It may have been possible to say: Listen, I’m coming in, we’re 𒅌not going to get 🍒it round another lap’.
“And so there ﷽is some💖 responsibility on the driver.
“I had a race at Donington where it was raining, drizzling, dry,😼 ღdrizzling - Aryton Senna famously won it by a country mile because he stayed out on one set of tyres!
“You’re only ever a frac🌠tion of a second from getting it right. And who can predict the weather?”
Sky’s Bernie Collins, who is th ex-strategy engineer for Aston Martin, said about Mercedes: “They clearly went into the ꦑrace🦹 with the mindset that it wasn’t going to rain, or it wouldn’t be for long.
“Because Lewis was the only car to start on that medium 🌸tyre.
“Everyone else had perhꦚaps an inkling that the soft was better for the first few laps until the rain came.
“They were the only team to diverge from that.
“T🍌here was a lot of hope on drive💜r radios that it was survivable, they would get through the rain, it didn’t need an inter tyre.
“But you need to react to the pace that someoneജ like Max or Checo showed on that inter, how quick they were on it.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from Amer𝔉ican sports, to football, to F1.
