Hamilton's W15 Intact After Verstappen Clash

Despite a fierce collision with Verstappen, Mercedes reveals Hamilton’s W15 remained perfectly intact.

Mercedes F1 acknowledged they were surprised Lewis Hamilton’s car was not damaged in his collision with Max Verstappen during the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The drivers made contact on lap 63 when Verstappen attempted to overtake Hamilton on the inside at the first turn, causing his left rear wheel to hit Hamilton’s right front wheel, launching the Red Bull into the air.

Both drivers managed to finish the race. Verstappen was checked by the FIA medical delegate due to the severity of the impact when his car hit the ground.

Mercedes F1’s Technical Director James Allison admitted they expected Hamilton’s car to have been damaged from the contact.

“When we saw it happen—like, I assume, everyone else watching around the world—it was such a huge collision that it seemed very unlikely to imagine both cars would come out unscathed. But in our case, the car was completely unharmed.”

“Lewis was able to reach the chequered flag without it really affecting his performance. So, it’s a tribute, I suppose, to the way we design things nowadays. But it’s also a good bit of luck, because it wouldn’t have taken much more than that, I think, for the car to have its front axle twisted or even ripped off.”

Allison also shed light on the circumstances that led to George Russell being eliminated in Q1 during qualifying for the second consecutive year at the Hungaroring, as he had to stop in the pits to avoid running out of fuel. He stated that the team had not ensured he did slow laps between fast laps while the track was drying, which would have reduced his fuel consumption.

“Our Q1 for George was a disaster. Part of that was due to mistakes made by George, but the majority, the center of gravity of the errors, were team mistakes.”

“The decisive moment came during the second outing. The second outing took place on a track that was drying at that stage, and unfortunately, George, due to a series of misunderstandings between us and him, ended up choosing, instead of doing a fast lap, then a slow lap, then a fast lap—to make the best of a difficult situation we had put him in—to do one fast, then another fast consecutively.”

“This meant that by the time he got to his last lap, which was already a lap earlier than we would have done if we had put the right amount of fuel in the car, the tires were not at their best, and he couldn’t improve and was eliminated. It was very disappointing for George, and we are really sorry for our part.”