Mercedes reveal 45G impact suffered by Hamilton at Spa
Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes suffered a "vertical load" impact of 45G as a result of the Briton's contact with Fernando Alonso on the second lap of last Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix.
Hamilton was attempting a move on the outside of Alonso at Les Combes when he clipped the Alpine and the rear of his car was sent into the air before the altter landed heavily in the corner's run-off area.
While Alonso was able to continue, Hamilton was ordered to park his car on the run down to the double-left Pouhon complex after his Mercedes crews had identified a sudden loss of water pressure.
Despite the impact triggering the FIA's medical warning alert, Hamilton was uninjured, which decided the Briton to forego his mandatory visit to Spa's medical center, a decision that yielded a staunch warning from the FIA.
"It was a large, large impact," Mercedes strategy director James Vowles said in the team's post-race debrief video on YouTube.
"It was measured at 45G on the SDR recorder in the car which is very big on a vertical load.
"He will be okay, he will be back in Zandvoort fighting. I think primarily for him he is frustrated, frustrated that he had a very fast race car, and a podium was possible but he, like all of us, are here to fight and continue moving forward."
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Vowles said that Mercedes is currently undertaking a thorough inspection and diagnosis of Hamilton's brand new power unit as well as the car's gearbox which was cracked by the impact.
All suspension components are also being closely examined ahaed of next weekend's race.
"There are enough photos floating around the internet to show just how high the car was and how it landed and the impact was large," said Vowles.
"What we noticed almost immediately after the impact on the ground was a loss of coolant.
"You can actually see on the onboard of Alonso that coolant really just flying out towards him, and then you started to see temperatures rise fairly quickly and that was the primary reason for stopping him on track.
"It will now take a few days to review all the components, clearly there are going to be overloads to the suspension components and gearbox and we need to make sure to understand the full extent of what’s required before Zandvoort."
©Mercedes
Vowles underscored Mercedes' race pace at Spa which was comparable to Ferrari's speed on Sunday afternoon. But the team's deficit in qualifying remains significant.
"The approach and philosophy of what you are doing in terms of prioritising race pace or qualifying pace, I think might be different between the two teams," commented the British engineer.
"Obviously, the numbers are large, they are far more vast than we normally see, you would normally expect a tenth or two, not a second.
"What I can say is that we are gaining to them on degradation in the race.
"So, part of it might be just how the tyres are being used and car performance, part of it is degradation. And the bias we’ve got is the one that is scoring points race on race.
"Clearly though we have to improve our qualifying position because it is not just relative to Ferrari, we are also racing in a qualifying condition McLaren and Alpine as well.
"And in order to be racing at the front, in order to get our first win this season we have to make sure that the qualifying improves from where it is and that’s the focus that hasn’t just been this race, we’ve been looking at it across the season, and will continue to do so."
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