A previously unheard radio message during the German Grand Prix has revealed Lewis Hamilton wanted to retire his car after spinning at Turn 1 late in the race.
Hamilton’s car was carrying damage after a collision with the barrier on lap 29 — the same incident that cost him the lead of the race — and on lap 53 of 64 he spun again at Turn 1, dropping him from 12th to 13th. The high-speed spin damaged his tyres and as his race engineer Peter Bonnington radioed him to tell him to pit, Hamilton responded by urging the team to retire his car.
“Okay, Lewis. Box, box for new soft tyres. Let us know if you need a flap adjust,” Bonnington said.
“Retire the car,” Hamilton replied.
“Negative, Lewis, negative,” Bonnington responded. “There’s always opportunities.”
The pit stop on lap 53 dropped Hamilton to last of the 15 runners, but he recovered to 11th at the finish and post-race penalties for Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi ultimately promoted him to ninth. The two points he scored as a result extended his lead in the championship to 41 points over Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Hamilton was suffering from flu-like symptoms throughout the weekend and later described the race as “probably the worst day I’ve had in the office for a long, long time.”
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff hinted at the extent of the illness Hamilton was harbouring, saying most people would not have raced.
“I think he was not healthy — he wasn’t healthy the whole weekend, but I think he did the most he could to get himself in an OK place for the race,” Wolff said. “Many of us wouldn’t have considered being in a race car, but he did and he did feel better today.
“But he can’t be physically in his best game when he’s been ill for a few days. Having said that, he tried to push through and that needs to be admired.”
Speaking on Sunday night, Hamilton said he would spend the week resting up at his home in Monaco ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
“I’ve cancelled everything I have for the next few days, so I’m going home probably just to sleep the next few days and try and get over this bug,” he added. “It’s not really improving massively, but hopefully over the next couple of days it will.
“I don’t think being in the car is any good and health is so important, so I’ll just try and make sure I’m as healthy as I can be for the next race.”